Captain Jacob Riley needs to get home, but the sea is a dangerous place. In a last ditch effort to make it, he buys a weapon. A weapon that is rumoured to be the deadliest on the high seas. But this isn't a weapon of iron or wood. It's a weapon of magic, and one that is capable of ripping out the souls of those who fall under its spell. Only it's not the Captain's soul that he needs to worry about. Don't forget that a heart can be stolen too.

The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.