Yorkshire, 1834. All eyes are on Anne Lister and Ann Walker as they set up home together at Shibden Hall as wife and wife, determined to combine their estates and become a power couple. Anne Lister’s entrepreneurial spirit frightens the locals as much as her unconventional love life and, with Halifax on the brink of revolution, her refusal to keep a low profile becomes provocative and dangerous.

Halifax, 1832. Anne Lister returns from Hastings to Shibden Hall, having discovered that her would-be companion and lover, the aristocratic Vere Hobart, has accepted a marriage proposal from a man. Despite her affection for her elderly aunt, Anne is frustrated by the shabbiness of her ancestral home and finds her father and long-suffering sister difficult to live with.