"Writer Jo Devereux returns home to Wexford for her mother's funeral with very mixed feelings." "After all, she hadn't seen Mrs. D for years - and for good reason. So when Jo finds herself agreeing to her mother's dying request to write a family history, her motives for doing so aren't clear even to herself. Family pride has caused Jo nothing but heartache - and cost her Rory, the only man she ever truly loved." "But maybe because her life as a sex columnist in San Francisco has become rackety and empty, and because a pregnant woman of thirty-eight needs to face her demons, Jo settles down to a long hot summer of excavating the past." "In unearthing undreamt-of family secrets - of love and revenge in a time of war, of the conflict between happiness and duty, and even of a murder that has haunted three generations - Jo begins to understand certain truths, not only about her mother and her grandmother, Peg, but also about herself and Rory, who is still lurking at the edge of her life."--Jacket.