Book description
A sweeping, multi-generational drama that moves from turn of the
century Oklahoma to present day Wiltshire, exploring the lives of two
very different women from one extraordinary family. In 1903, New York
heiress Caroline marries a cattle rancher and moves with him to rural
Oklahoma, where she finds herself wholly out of her depth. Unable to
adjust to the isolation of the vast prairies, Caroline grows
increasingly frightened and unhappy. When her husband is killed, she is
shattered. Driven to the edge of reason she commits a terrible crime
from which she flees, all the way to London, to start a new life as the
wife of English aristocrat Henry Calcott. She moves to Storton Manor in
Wiltshire, but soon finds that the repercussions of her actions have
crossed the Atlantic with her, and will not be so easily forgotten. In
the bitter winter of 2008, following the death of their grandmother,
Erica Calcott and her sister Beth return to Storton Manor, where they
spent the summer holidays as children. As she begins to sort through her
grandmother's belongings, Erica is inundated with memories of her
childhood, and of Dinny, a local boy whom she idolised. She also
remembers her spiteful cousin, Henry, whose disappearance from the manor
tore the family apart. Convinced that she should remember what happened
to Henry, Erica sets out to uncover the truth. She is reunited with
Dinny, and finds herself as drawn to him in adulthood as she was as a
child. Haunted by emotions and suspicions, Erica delves deeply into her
memories, revisiting the people and places that shaped her childhood,
and bringing to light a truth more shocking than she had ever imagined.
