Another unforgettable tale weaving together history and mystery from the bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden. A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Middlhurst Castle, a great but moldering old place, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted fifty years before as a thirteen-year-old child during WW II. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn't been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Millderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in "the distant hours" of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it. Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring characters beset by circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling.