Iris Lockhart is working at her vintage shop in London when she receives a call saying her great-aunt is being released from a psychiatric ward. Iris is convinced there's been a mistake: She's never heard of Esme Lennox. But she soon learns that Esme is her grandmother's sister, and has been hospitalized for more than sixty years. As the older woman's history—the tragedy of an odd, bookish child unwilling to conform to social norms—is tantalizingly revealed, family secrets rise to the surface, upending all Iris knows about her own identity. With echoes of Kate Chopin and Daphne du Maurier, this exquisitely haunting novel is an absolutely compulsive read.