Seventeen-year-old Agnes Wilkins is about to make her debut into 1815 London society at a lavish party, where she meets Lord Showalter, a wealthy and eligible man who collects Egyptian antiquities and who is hiding a dangerous secret.
Seventeen-year-old Agnes Wilkins dreams of being an Egyptologist and what it would be like to arrive in Cairo on the back of a camel to study Egyptian mummies, but she is stuck in 1817 London at the beginning of her debut season as a debutant.
