Perched on a hill overlooking San Francisco, the house was
magnificent, built in 1923 by a wealthy man for the woman
he adored. For her and for this house, he would spare no
expense and overlook no detail, from the endless marble
floors to the glittering chandeliers. Almost a century
later, with the once-grand house now in disrepair, a young
woman walks through its empty rooms. Sarah Anderson, a
perfectly sensible estate lawyer, is about to do something
utterly out of character. An elderly client has died and
left her two gifts. One is a generous inheritance. The
other, a priceless message: to use his money for something
wonderful, something daring. And in this old house,
surrounded by crumbling grandeur, Sarah knows just what it
is.
A respected attorney and self-described workaholic, Sarah
had always lived life by the book. With a steady, if
sputtering, relationship and a tiny apartment that has
suited her just fine, Sarah cannot explain the force that
draws her to the mansion and its history- to the story of
a woman who once lived in the house, then mysteriously
left it, to a child who grew up there, and a drama that
unfolded in war-torn France...and to a history she never
knew she had.
Taking the biggest risk of her life, Sarah enlists the
help of architect Jeff Parker, who shares Sarah's passion
for bringing the exquisite old house back to life. As she
and Jeff work to restore the home's every detail, as one
relationshipshatters and another begins, Sarah makes a
series of powerful discoveries: about the true meaning of
a dying man's last gift...about the extraordinary legacies
that are passed from generation to generation...and about
a future she's only just beginning to imagine.