A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives
completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and
a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the
dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-fi rst birthday,
they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to
go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity.
Her quest leads her to
Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet
family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after
Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled.