England, 1868: Orphaned and penniless, eighteen-year-old Sarah is left the sole guardian of her beloved little sister Lucy, who she's vowed to protect at all costs. With nowhere left to turn, she is forced to accept mysterious widower James Mills's proposal of marriage. She believes being his bride can't possibly be as bad as the threat of the workhouse. But nothing prepares her for the darkness of her marriage, the shocking secrets of her new family, and the lengths she will have to go to keep her sister safe...
Now: Living in the beautiful village of Goswell, Ellen believes her family life to be idyllic...until her estranged seventeen-year-old stepdaughter Annabelle moves in and shatters the peace. Ellen fears they will never bond, until she finds a death certificate for a woman named Sarah, from over a century earlier, hidden under the floorboards of their house and Annabelle starts to help her unravel the mystery. Yet as Ellen and Annabelle dig deeper into Sarah's life and death, shocking truths, both past and present, come to light that change everything Ellen thought she knew about Sarah's family, and the new addition to her own... This novel can be enjoyed as a standalone.
