One family across two generations.

A marriage marred by trauma and infidelity.

Lives marked by death, divorce and a shattered family.

A dark secret at the heart of a tragedy.

The past

Julia Teague is the youngest daughter in her family. Lonely and imaginative, she loves Tawray with all her heart. But, marked by her mother’s doomed struggle to bear more children, she enters her adult years with an inner frailty masked by vivacity and charm.

David Pengelly, handsome and distinguished, is in royal service, aide to the most glamorous couple in the land. Julia steals his heart, but even he falters as the extent of her fragility becomes clear.

The present

Tawray is no longer home to the Pengelly family. For Julia’s daughter Alex, it is the gorgeous house that holds the memories of her lost mother.

She and her brother Johnnie still suffer from the legacy of the past and their tangled relationship with David and Sally, their stepmother, who has always put her own son before them.

Time is running out to discover the secrets of what happened to their mother all those years ago. Can they find out the truth about her life and death before it is lost forever? 

A gripping and compelling gothic novel from Lulu Taylor, bestselling author of The Snow Rose and Her Frozen Heart.