Forced into retirement, history professor Ellen Kershaw finds herself at a loose end. So when she is contacted by a reclusive billionaire, with an unusual proposition, her interest is piqued. Theodore Shepherd is funding a museum for diaries, and he wants Ellen to curate it. A live-in position at a Gothic stately home in the middle of Dartmoor, it's just the escape she needs whilst she works out what to do with the rest of her life. Ellen soon finds herself immersed in the stories and diaries that await her. But as voices from the past start to interweave with the present, mysteries and secrets from her own childhood come to light. . .