Summer 1801. Sidmouth, England. The Austen family descends upon a fashionable Georgian seaside resort in Devonshire for a six-week holiday. Jane's brother, Frank, is on leave from the Royal Navy, and dearly wishes to unite his sister with his friend Captain Peter Parker. But another holidaymaker, a handsome stranger, catches sight of Jane and is determined to make her acquaintance. By the end of the summer, the course of her life will have changed forever.