The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.

Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.

In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?