On the heels of completing "Sense and Sensibility," Jane Austen heads to Sloane Street for a monthlong visit with her brother Henry and his wife, Eliza. Hobnobbing with the fashionable at the height of the Season, Jane is well aware of their secrets and peccadilloes. But even she is surprised when the intimate correspondence between a Russian princess and a prominent Tory ex-minister is published in the papers for all to see. More shocking, the disgraced beauty is soon found with her throat slit on Lord Castlereagh's very doorstep. Everyone in high society is certain the spurned princess committed the violence upon herself. But Jane is unconvinced. Nor does she believe the minister guilty of so grisly and public a crime. When a quirk of fate thrusts Jane and Eliza into the heart of the case--as prime suspects--Jane strikes a bargain with the authorities, securing seven days to save herself and Eliza from hanging. But as her quest to unmask a killer takes her from the halls of government to the drawing rooms of London's most celebrated courtesan, only one thing is sure: her failure will not only cut short her life. It could lead to England's downfall.