A girl with a clockwork heart must make every second count.
When Penny Farthing nearly dies, brilliant surgeon Calvin Warwick
manages to implant a brass "Ticker" in her chest, transforming her into
the first of the Augmented. But soon it's discovered that Warwick killed
dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for
Penny, and he's put on trial for mass murder.
On the last day of Warwick's trial, the Farthings' factory is bombed,
Penny's parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a
ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to
see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings...or
is the motive more sinister?
Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and
her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town
Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has
his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the
next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and
time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart.