Theodora Norton, my mother, lived her entire life in emotional suffering because of her husband. “I’ve prepared everything so you won’t have to live like me.” With her last breath, Theodora revealed that she had prepared not one, but several perfect men for my twenty-fourth birthday. I dismissed it as nothing more than the lingering resentment of a woman hurt by her husband’s infidelity until my father brought home a new wife, Agatha, and her daughter, Eplin, right after the funeral. Six years later, on my birthday, my father died. Just as I face losing my entire inheritance to Agatha and Eplin, five of the most powerful and sought-after men in the empire appear before me just as my mother had promised. Alfred, the eldest son of the southern admiral’s family. Percival, the Grand Duke of the North and a war hero. Kasius, a man with a suspiciously thriving business. Magnus, my former rival and now a renowned art patron. And Carter, my childhood friend, who knows everything about me and is now the High Priest. And so, I, Eugenie Norton, an ordinary graduate student, begin to rewrite the history of the empire with five extraordinary men as my husbands.