When a crooked lawyer burns a dead author's books, their words come back to haunt him.
Having destroyed author REX BEAUMONT's last will regarding the Heartsease estate, his nephew, PATRICK PETO, has no qualms about ignoring an insignificant codicil leaving "all my books to Barbara". But when he illegally obtains possession of Heartsease and consigns his uncle's entire body of work to the flames, he awakes vengeful forces that are determined to set matters aright.
When Patrick unwittingly presents BARBARA DANE with the leather-bound volumes containing Rex's memoirs, she makes surprising discoveries about the distinguished past of the man she has known only as a frail old eccentric. While she becomes embroiled in the books' efforts to fulfil Rex's wishes, the author's imaginary worlds invade Patrick's reality until he can no longer distinguish fact from fiction.
After an argument, his wife, ELEANOR, banishes him from the family home, leaving him no choice but to spend the night at Heartsease. There, he is at the mercy of the characters his uncle created, including the fearsome JUDGE JULIUS SCRIVENER who puts Patrick on trial for his life. After a plea for mercy from the fictional NOEL BEATTIE, his sentence is reduced to 90 days and 90 nights, during which he must rewrite every story he has destroyed.