In 1836 the Industrial Revolution collided with the sexual revolution when magic was unleashed upon an unsuspecting Earth.

Ancient mystic practices were applied to a new form of technology pioneered by the first tantric aviatrixes, the Matriarchy, who used their secret Art to launch a flying city named Godmother, the Amethyst City. But twenty years of aerial and techno-magical superiority have led the ruling Crone Council and the zealots of the Legion of Lilith to slowly turn the Matriarchy toward the idea of rule rather than liberation.

Although concerned with the recent militaristic bent of her sisterhood, Charlotte Frost is more preoccupied with a cheating wife and trying to keep her Liberty Ship, the Harlot's Promise, aloft and free of interference by the Crones. But the appearance of a prototype Doll, self-aware and capable of mind control via sex, shakes what little faith Charlotte has left in the Matriarchy's pure motives.

The truth is far darker and more tangled than she ever suspected.