"It seems that in the past week 700 people have died of the plague. . . One of the houses in the next street had a red cross painted on the door. Above the cross someone had chalked Lord Have Mercy Upon Us. . . ? A time of horror has come to London. As the bubonic plague ravages the city, mercilessly plucking up victims and filling the plague pits with corpses, 13-yearold Alice Payton records the outbreak in her diary. But when her own aunt is struck down with the disease, Anne is forced to make a decision that could change her life forever." -- Back cover.