"In a post-apocalyptic eastern seaboard ravaged by disease and war with a manmade race of people called Partials, the chance at a future rests in the hands of Kira Walker, a sixteen-year-old medic in training"--

Seventeen-year-old Becca auditions for a new, non-lethal reality show featuring Painiacs, hoping to prove that her deceased mother was not Alcatraz 2.0 executioner Molly Mauler.

The journey begins on a ship at sea in 1766, with a boy named Billy Marvel. After surviving a shipwreck, he finds work in a London theatre. There, his family flourishes for generations as brilliant actors until 1900, when young Leontes Marvel is banished from the stage. Nearly a century later, Joseph Jervis runs away from school and seeks refuge with a reclusive uncle in London. Albert Nightingale's strange, beautiful house, with its mysterious portraits...