"By the time I left Netherford, I hardly knew myself. After all, I was not a woman one would peg as a murderer, nor likely to become one. But fate surprises us all." A woman posing as a governess to escape her abusive marriage. A clever Irish doctor with a secret of his own. A thrilling, gothic love story. The suspenseful and eerie tale of one woman's fight to take her life into her own hands. After the abrupt deaths of her parents, the brilliant but reclusive daughter of a Plymouth merchant finds herself married to a monster. Determined to survive, she poses as a governess and escapes to a remote and imposing estate in the wilds of Yorkshire, where an ancient and ailing baron presides over a tiny, closely knit household. The baron's handsome, clever doctor is drawn immediately to this mysterious, reserved new governess, and she to him. But is the doctor all he seems? Her life may depend on the answer.