The Wisteria and the Wren
Evangeline Marlowe arrives at a remote cliffside manor she has inherited from an aunt she cannot remember, carrying only a traveling case and a stubborn refusal to turn back. The house has been empty for years, the gate rusted shut, the gardens swallowed by wild wisteria. On the desk in the east wing she finds a leather journal dated from years before, its final entry , written by a man named Arthur , broken off mid-sentence the night he disappeared without a trace. The only neighbor for miles is Declan Frost, the reclusive lighthouse keeper whose lantern has swept the same dark stretch of coast for as long as anyone in the village can recall. He greets her with guarded civility and a warning he will not explain. As Evangeline reads deeper into Arthur's journal, she draws the attention of Julian Vane, the estate's solicitor, who wants the property sold before its secrets can surface; Mabel, the housekeeper who has tended the empty rooms in faithful silence; Richard Vance, whose interest in the cliff road is older and more personal than he admits; and Cordelia, whose name appears in the journal's margins and whose smile never quite reaches her eyes. Each of them is hiding something. Each of them knew Arthur. The storm season is coming, and the cliff road will soon be impassable. Evangeline must decide whether to uncover what really happened the night Arthur vanished , or to leave his silence, and the wisteria, undisturbed.