In 1820s' rural Derbyshire, an abandoned new-born is discovered under a hawthorn bush by Carey, a witch living unexplainedly on church ground in the village of Brockhill. She names the foundling Valentine and raises him as a pagan. Valentine's impoverished childhood is followed by an unexpected academic education from the local vicar on whose land the pair live. The young boy's adolescent love for Susan, a fellow village orphan, and his later passion for Francis Levett-Bayne, the well-heeled but dissolute estate owner, lead to an awakening of conflicting yet conflated sexual desires. Mary Reynolds, in her second novel, dramatically and sensitively portrays Valentine's development from rural urchin to young city gentleman, and tells the story of how his struggle to leave behind his Satanic roots has ultimately tragic consequences.