The Brontë sisters' first poetry collection has just been published when Anne receives a letter from her former pupil Lydia Robinson. Lydia has eloped with a young actor Harry Roxby and following her disinheritance the couple been living in poverty in London. But Harry has become embroiled with a criminal gang and is in terrible danger after allegedly losing something very valuable. Lydia knows there are few people who she can turn to in this time of need but the sisters agree to help beginning a race against time to save Harry's life. In doing so they come face to face with a terrifying adversary whom even the toughest of the slum-dwellers are afraid of . . . The Red Monarch.