Vivian has more in common with her nemesis than she wants to believe.

Waxwood, 1900: For Vivian Alderdice, the twentieth century begins with a new start. Now a working woman and progressive reformer, she’s forsaken Nob Hill for the more modest Waxwood. She’s laid Penelope Alderdice’s specter to rest at last. Granted, her life isn’t the one she was born into. Instead of a Nob Hill socialite, she sells strawberry sodas at her friend’s drugstore and helps working-class women improve their education. But she has no complaints about the calmness and predictability of her days.

Vivian’s peaceful existence is thrown into turmoil when the man who ruined her brother’s life appears like another specter she must exorcise.

At first, Vivian hates him with a passion. But when she sees how his own undiscovered past has destroyed him, leaving him helpless in the hands of a cousin who hates him worse than she does, she finds herself feeling compassion for him.

Is it his journey Vivian will discover in the dark forest of guilt and betrayal or her own?

Read the powerful conclusion of the Alderdice family saga set in the enlightened times of the Progressive Era.

Discover for yourself whether Vivian will complete her self-actualization and find peace and forgiveness in the future.