When Charlotte Heywood, eldest daughter of a family of fourteen, is invited to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Parker of Sanditon, she accepts with alacrity, intrigued to visit the once quiet town being promoted by Mr. Parker as the newly fashionable resort for sea-bathing.

As a guest of the Parkers, Charlotte is introduced to the full range of Sanditon polite society, from Lady Denham to her impoverished ward Clara and from the feckless Sidney Parker to his hypochondriac sisters. A heroine whose clear-sighted common sense is often at war with romance, she cannot help observing around her both folly and romance in many guises, but can she herself resist the attractions of the heart?