In a handful of days, Elspeth Shutterhouse must step into the marriage machine, which will dull her ambitions and join her forever to a complete stranger. She would rather be sent to the Norsea work camps than be turned into a baby-making drone. Instead of following the dictates of her repressive society, Elspeth puts everything on the line to destroy the contraption...never guessing she will come face-to-face with the one person who could stop her: handsome Mark Ramsay, the scion of the family that invented the machine. Jules Verne collides with Jane Austen in this truly different novella by award-winning author Patricia Simpson as she introduces her new series, The Londo Chronicles.