Georgina Hadley, at twenty-six, is contented with her life. She loves her job at Kew Gardens and deep affection exists between her and her colleague there, William Bird. But, as her parents leave London for Washington, a phone call from her mother’s old home in Tuscany is to change her life forever. Summoned urgently to Poggio by the hostile Professor Fleming who is staying there, she’s given the news: her beloved grandmother is in hospital; her grandfather is struggling to avoid ruin. The professor has not exaggerated, she finds. A once beautiful and prosperous estate is now a tangle of neglected vines and olive orchards. Handsome, successful Roberto Artom, her childhood friend, appears to offer desperately needed help and the hope of dazzling happiness - but the offer is not what it seems. Humiliated and soon betrayed, Georgina must save Poggio herself at the cost of what is dear to her in London. But there is still William Bird to take into account - and the strangely unknowable professor, Adam Fleming…