In the Year of our Lord 1633, Mary Margret Russo graduates from Grantville High School at the top of her class. The beautiful and strong willed up-timer, as the people from the future are called, is mysteriously hired by a branch of the wealthiest family in the world. Mary finds herself far from her family, living in a beautiful castle in the Inn Valley of Tyrol. There she meets Counts, Countesses, the handsome and distant Count Johann Franz, and works hard as a teacher and consultant among the one-percenters of the day. But all is not what it seems in this gilded world, where religion, undercurrents of witchcraft, and vast sums of money create high-stakes contests, and where treachery and death await the unwary or the unprepared. Can a resolute and intelligent girl find love, happiness, and purpose in this world where she is the ultimate outsider, out of her time, alone, and in dangers she cannot comprehend?