It had been a sunny afternoon when she glanced from the cliff where she sat reading and saw below her in the sea a sight that would change her life.Set in England and Italy in 1910, this is the story of a young English girl who by accident starts to unravel the unknown elements of her grandmother's past and is brought by the mystery to the faraway city of Venice. There among the gondolas and canals, she slowly comes to comprehend the meaning of two strange and puzzling dreams--dreams that seem to hold an eerie and menancing prophecy of the future.Here is all the grandeur and excitement of the ageless glory of Venice and the handsome beauty of the English countryside combined in the romantic and suspenseful story of a young girl's confrontation with the past.

    Long ago they served as refuge for the Wingate women from the savage tempers and brutal passions of the Wingate men. Now. though they had been sealed for many years, distant echoes of what once happened there still seemed to reverberate in the dimly-lit air. Everyone told Chloe Win-ate to let the ghosts of the fearful past rest undisturbed. Handsome. sardonic Innis Rolland mocked Chloe's efforts to investigate the evil that haunted the old mansion. Cool. level-headed Cecil Mallory claimed that he wanted to take Chloe away with him to safety. But Chloe was in the grip of something stronger than reason, and as in a dream. she found herself opening the forbidden door and stepping inside....

    The last time she had seen the house called Conover's Folly, she had been a frightened child, watching from the darkened stairway as her father killed her mother, then himself. Now she is back -- eighteen years old, alone in the world, an heiress. She intends to sell the house, to be rid of its memories forever. But she discovers that Conover's Folly holds a secret -- one that may explain her father's actions. And she knows that to uncover this secret she must risk her life...

    

    — An evil, invalid mistress... — A mysterious lord of the manor... — These were only a few of the eerie terrors that awaited the new young governess. These were only a part of the bloodcurdling curse haunting the old estate. — There were also the dark, evil corridors... the weird half-human cries.. the looming black shadow... the banshee shrieks in the night...An innocent and unsuspecting young governess falls prey to a bizarre family curse. Heart-stopping romantic suspense in the tradition of Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt.

    But none of this mattered, for there she met Dr. Hank Loomis who took her protectively in his arms and promised to secure her future. -- But the house was steeped in the past, with a magic and mysterious grove, a locked room, and restless ghosts whose names were never spoken.Then a light and lilting started summoning Liane wordlessly: come to me, come to me. Spellbound she searched for the whistler, unaware that the strange and beautiful tune was the sound of death, calling to her...

    She welcomed the offer to take care of 11-year-old Cecily Vandering at the family's seaside estate.But soon it became clear this was no ordinary job. Someone was trying to corrupt Cecily with drugs, someone whom the little girl refused to reveal, someone who would let no one stand in the way. And even in the protective arms of a brilliant, handsome man who said he loved her, Ellen felt the icy embrace of fear, as a killer tightened his deadly noose...