American heiress Ruby Vaughn still hasn't entirely forgiven her octogenarian employer and housemate, Mr. Owen, for bringing the occult into their lives during her recent trip to Cornwall. He claims their journey to Manhurst Castle in the Scottish Borders is simply to appraise and acquire illuminated manuscripts for their rare books shop. But when Ruby discovers there are no manuscripts and receives news of a séance to be held that very night, she begins to grow suspicious about the true reason why they have come. Mr. Owen is desperate to speak to his dead son, but he doesn’t want to face the spirits alone. When the séance --- hosted by a trio of mediums billing themselves as The Three Fates --- goes awry, Mr. Owen’s secrets begin to unravel. When Ruby finds one of the Three Fates murdered the night of the seance, she and Mr. Owen quickly become the prime suspects.

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and housemate in Exeter. She’s avoided dwelling on the past, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby’s once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It’s an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth’s bells ring for the first time in 30 years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse.