Desperate for work, Mary O'Donnelly accepts a position as housekeeper for an enigmatic elderly lady. Gradually, Mary realizes her ladyship's house holds an unusual and fascinating power over its owner and the small circle of friends who attend her regular dinner parties. Through observation, Mary discovers the truth behind the phenomenon, but the secret power is threatened by an accident, and Mary sets out to restore her ladyship's unusual world. Beginning in the London of 1910, the novel explores the uncertainty of a post-Victorian Britain seeking new directions, yet overshadowed by the political and social turmoil that lead to World War I The book employs Well's Law (named after H.G.Wells): "a science fiction story should contain only a single extraordinary assumption. As soon as the magic trick has been done the whole business of the fantasy writer is to keep everything else human and real."

Michael Smith is a regular contributor to short fiction journals, and his work has appeared in Fabula Argentea, Witcraft, Literally Stories, Heimat Review, The Hooghly Review, Little Old Lady Comedy, and many other online literary journals. The starting point came when I read Austin Kleon's inspirational book 'Steal Like An Artist'. Kleon wrote, "When I was asked to talk to students at a community college in upstate New York in 2011, I sat down and wrote a talk based on a list of 10 things I wished I'd heard when I was starting out." Number 3 on that list of ten things is "Write the book you want to read." And that's what I've been doing ever since. After privately sharing a few stories, family and friends began encouraging me to publish.