Virginiaxs Shenandoah Valley in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains is a long way from Hollywood And thatxs exactly how Cilla McGowan likes it Cilla a former child star has found a more satisfying life working with her hands to restore homes from floor to ceiling x and has come here to her grandmotherxs farmhouse tools at her side to rescue it from ruin Sadly no one had been able to save her grandmother the legendary Janet Hardy An actress with a golden voice and a tumultuous life Janet entertained glamorous guests and engaged in decadent affairs x but died of an overdose in this very house more than thirty years ago To this day Janet haunts Cillaxs dreams And during her waking hours Cilla is haunted by her melodramatic five-times-married mother who carried on in the public spotlight and never gave her a chance at a normal childhood By coming to the East Coast rolling up her sleeves and rehabbing this wreck of a house Cilla intends to take a shot at finding some kind of normalcy for herself Cilla has her work cut out for her x the house once a place of comfort and simple rural beauty is long neglected crumbling the grounds choked by weeds Plunging into the project with gusto shexs almost too busy and exhausted to notice her neighbor graphic novelist Ford Sawyer x but his lanky form green eyes and easy unflappable humor not to mention his delightfully ugly dog Spock are hard to ignore Determined not to carry on the family tradition of ill-fated romances Cilla steels herself against Fordxs quirky charm but she canxt help indulging in a little fantasy But love and a peaceful life may not be in the cards for Cilla In the housexs cluttered attic she has found a cache of unsigned letters tied with a faded red ribbon suggesting that Janet Hardy was pregnant when she died x and that the father of her child was a local married man Cilla canxt help but wonder what really happened all those years ago The mystery only deepens with a series of cruel and intimidating acts and a frightening violent assault And if Cilla and Ford are unable to sort out who is targeting her and why she may like her world-famous grandmother be cut down in the prime of her life.
