Joss Messenger is searching for the truth about the mystery woman who placed red roses on her father’s coffin at his funeral.
After the funeral service, the mystery woman, dressed in a black coat with a red rose pinned to the collar, steps forward. She hands Joss a piece of paper. On the scrap of linen foolscap is scrawled Deacon & Co, Solicitors, St David’s, Pembrokeshire. The ink is fountain pen red and the writing a spidery copperplate.
The aftermath of her father’s death takes Joss on a rollercoaster ride back through childhood to university days, passionate involvement in student protest movements, a year travelling in East Africa and the progression of her career as a university lecturer, up to the point where, on a last minute trip to Marrakesh, she meets and falls in love with Ben, her famously unflappable partner and now the father of her two children.
The secret revealed by Deacon of Deacon & Co sets Joss on a new path of discovery that eventually reveals her true birthright, a discovery that leads Joss to re-evaluate her most fundamental beliefs about herself and the world.
For Joss Messenger, academic, writer and mother, nothing will ever be quite the same again.