[3] Fourteen-year-old Jacquetta, whose noble family claims descendance from the water goddess Melusine, learns the secrets of her inherited powers from her great-aunt Jehanne, the Demoiselle of Luxembourg.

Three years later at age 17, Jacquetta is given in marriage to John, Duke of Bedford, the uncle to King Henry VI and the English regent in France.

On their wedding night, however, the Duke explains that he wishes to keep her a virgin so that she may use the powers of her family in their purest form in his alchemical experiments seeking the ability to turn iron into gold.

Publishers Weekly wrote of the novel, "Gregory portrays spirited women at odds with powerful men, endowing distant historical events with drama, and figures long dead or invented with real-life flaws and grand emotions."

The review adds that the author "makes history (mostly accurate) come alive for readers (mostly women) by giving credence to persistent rumors that academic historians (mostly men) have brushed aside.