When Thea Richardson and her best friend Ellie set out for the 1905 Newcastle Blondes and Brunettes beauty competition, Thea dreads to think what will happen if her authoritarian father ever finds out. But she never imagined that three days later she'd be ousted from the family home in Jesmond and sent to live with her mother's unmarried sister, Marjorie, in disgrace.

Yet as the days go by, what was intended as punishment brings to Thea the contentment she has never known in her own home. In her Aunt Marjorie she finds the companionship she never had with her mother, and if it wasn't for the fact that her aunt's handsome artist friend, Robert Hedley, doesn't seem to know she's alive, everything would be perfect. But a dark force is about to shatter her new-found security and take Thea to a dangerous world she never dreamt existed...