During the English Age of Reason, a woman cloistered since birth learns that knowledge is no substitute for experience.

Raised by her father in near isolation in the English countryside, Emilie Selden is trained as a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. In the spring of 1725, father and daughter embark upon their most daring alchemical experiment to date attempting to breathe life into dead matter. But when Emilie against her father's wishes experiences the passion of first love, she is banished to London, where she soon discovers she knows nothing about human nature or her own family's complicated past. So begins her shocking journey to enlightenment.