Ivy, the youngest in a family of thieves, con artists, and roustabouts, seems destined for an unhappy fate—until she and her brother are plucked from their surroundings by a charitable benefactor and sent to school. From the scams of the slums, where Ivy develops an unfortunate taste for laudanum, to the gardens of the most talented artists of the age, where Ivy’s striking hair and incandescent eyes propel her into a career as a model, Ivy is a story of nineteenth-century sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.