This is the story of one glorious gothic mansion, Garonlea, and two rather different women who would be Queen. Lady Charlotte French-McGrath has successfully ruled over her family with an iron will, until the arrival of Cynthiabeautiful, young, talented, selfish, and engaged to her son Desmond. Cynthia is a denizen of the Jazz Age and, on the surface, her life passes in a whirl of hunting, drinking, and romance. But the ghosts of Garonlea are only biding their time. They know the source of their powera secret handed down through generations."

In 1914, when Nicandra is eight, all is well in the grand Irish estate, Deer Forest. Maman is beautiful and adored. Dada, silent and small, mooches contendedly around the stables. Aunt Tossie, of the giant heart and bosom, is widowed but looks splendid in weeds. The butler, the groom, the landsteward, the maids, the men - each as a place and knows it. Then, astonishingly, the perfect surface is shattered; Maman does something too dreadful ever to be spoken of.
'What next? Who to love?' asks Nicaranda. And through her growing up and marriage her answer is to swamp those around her with...