Where Ivy Dares to Grow

Traveling to be with her fiance's terminally ill mother in her last days, Saoirse Read expected her introduction to the family's ancestral home would be bittersweet. But the stark thrust of Langdon Hall against the cliff and the hundred darkened windows in its battered walls are almost as forbidding as the woman who lies wasting inside. Her fiance's parents make no secret of their distaste for Saoirse, and their feelings have long since spread to their son. Or perhaps it is only the shadows of her mind suggesting she's unwelcome, seizing on her fears while her beloved grieves?

As Saoirse takes to wandering the estate's winding, dreamlike gardens, overgrown and half-wild with neglect, she slips back through time to 1818. There she meets Theo Page, a man like her fiance but softer, with all the charms of that gentler age, and who clearly harbors a fervent interest in her. As it becomes clear that Theo is her fiance's ancestor, and the tenuous peace of Langdon Hall crumbles around her, Saoirse finds she's no longer sure which dreams and doubts belong to the present-and which might not be dreams at all . . .