Southern England, 1735. She is known as the Belle of Brighton. The eldest daughter of well-landed gentry, Emelyn Morley is expected to secure the legacy of her family by marrying not for love, but for wealth and rank. Yet after six years out in society she shows little interest in her overbearing mother's choices. The Morley estate is Hastelbrook Hall, a vast manor built to uneven grandeur by a mad ancestor, and surrounded by whispers. Villagers eye the house with suspicion, speaking of ghosts, or even a curse. Emelyn has never seen a ghost, but is lately troubled by the recurring dream of a pale woman shrouded in black, who leads her to a dark foreboding place she never reaches before waking. Mysterious events are afoot, and one evening after escaping a repugnant suitor in the garden maze, Emelyn comes face to face with the woman in black, proving she is no dream. Stirred to investigate, Emelyn learns that on the very hour of her birth an ancient seal of stone beneath Hastelbrook began to turn, marking the first sign of an ominous prophecy. A nameless darkness is gathering, even as an unaccountable catastrophe threatens to destroy the Morley fortune. Caught between the daylight pressure to preserve her family by marriage and the encroaching world of night, Emelyn soon finds that centuries-old tales of SAUNMOOR, the haunted hidden city ruled by its cold immortal queen, are more than myth.