London, 1881

Sylvie has been locked away most of her life as the queen’s ill and illegitimate daughter. The royal institution wanted her to be the face of a new age, but Sylvie was delicate. Now twenty-one, she’s determined to break free from her gilded cage once and for all. When faced with an unwanted arranged marriage, she barters her compliance for a year of freedom.

Then she meets the Quilt Crew—a menagerie of eclectic friends—in a hardworking London neighborhood. They help her find everything she’s ever dreamed of: work, strength, friends, and love.

Thomas, leader of the Quilt Crew and a skilled underground boxer, is the solace Sylvie yearns for, but as her new life adjusts, an unexpected connection with someone else in the Crew begins to blur the lines of her heart.

Even if she follows her gut, her arranged wedding date looms overhead. Will Sylvie find the courage to resist the institution and stay with her one true love?