INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the author of the New York Times bestseller HomecomingââAn ambitious, compelling historical mystery with a fabulous cast of charactersâŠKate Morton at her very best.â âKristin Hannah
âAn elaborate tapestryâŠMorton doesnât disappoint.â âThe Washington Post
"Classic English country-house Goth at its finest." âNew York Post
In the depths of a 19th-century winter, a little girl is abandoned on the streets of Victorian London. She grows up to become in turn a thief, an artistâs muse, and a lover. In the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she travels with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a bend of the Upper Thames. Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. It is not until over a century later, when another young woman is drawn to Birchwood Manor, that its secrets are finally revealed.
Told by multiple voices across time, this is an intricately layered, richly atmospheric novel about art and passion, forgiveness and loss, that shows us that sometimes the way forward is through the past.