Never underestimate a librarian. Fifty-something librarian Shona McMonagle is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls with a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name. It s 1788, and Shona has travelled back in time and turned up in the Assembly Rooms. Edinburgh society is lionising Burns on his second visit to the capital. He d rather be in Ayrshire with Jean, but his publisher has made him go on tour and his publicist has told him to adopt the persona of A Lad to boost interest. His publicist is in fact Nancy McLehose, Clarinda; she has framed Mistress Blaine for murdering a coachman, and condemned her to the Tollbooth. Shona enlists the help of a teenage Walter Scott, but the plot continues to thicken. What will happen to the Enlightenment, and to these resourceful women?