During the rainless summer of 1967, in a tumble-down English abbey, three sisters have their portrait painted by an artist friend. There is young Maisie, strangely observant, who sees ghosts; Julia, arrogant and beautiful; and Finn, wild and bookish. Maisie, in turn, embarks on a portrait of her own, chronicling a cataclysmic summer and events that will have repercussions two decades later. Inhabiting her own skillfully honed niche between literary and commercial fiction, Sally Beauman has written another completely entrancing novel—part page-turning mystery, part haunting love story—that will add to her growing legion of admirers on both sides of the Atlantic.