A novel based on the dramatic and significant life of Mary Eleanor Bowes, ancestor of the Queen. Set in Newcastle, Durham and London, it tells the story of the daughter of coal czar George Bowes MP, who raised his only daughter in the same way as he would have raised a son. His death when she was only 11 left her the richest heiress in England: prey to the conventions of Georgian England. Married on her eighteenth birthday into the Scottish aristocracy, she lost control of her life, her estates and her body. Suddenly widowed at 28, she regained independence and set about pursuing her interests with all the means at her disposal. But it was not to last: tricked into marriage with an Irish adventurer, she was subjected to eight years of abuse and exploitation. How could she survive, let alone fight for her rights in misogynistic Georgian England?