"A new Gilead novel that tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the beloved, erratic, and grieved-over prodigal son of a Presbyterian minister from Gilead, Iowa"--

Two novellas and one short story, based on the author's own experiences, center on a young man's discovery of life and art in the woods of western Montana.

Originally published in Great Britain in 1978, the novel describes Margaret Marsh's coming of age one summer between the world wars. Caught in the backwash of a fervently religious father, a mother bitterly nostalgic for what might have been, the tea and sympathy of some thoroughly secular neighbors and the bawdy jokes of her nanny Lydia, Margaret's world hurtles toward a shattering moment of truth. Drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce lend themselves...

Blackmail. Arson. Murder. Obsession. Beautiful as its peacock feathers may be, the priceless fan hidden deep within the Framling mansion has a legacy of death and destruction. And Drusilla Delany has no idea she's been marked by its curse... But the fan's dark past might prove less of a danger than Fabian Framling himself. Dark, brooding, and dominating, will he be the one to save her from the fan's cruel fate...or cause her demise?

In nineteenth-century England, jilted by London's most eligible bachelor, Julia convinces her friend to play the role of his ideal match. Soon, Mr. Malcolm wonders whether he's found the perfect woman or the perfect hoax.