Autumn has finally arrived, heralded by a strange old man appearing with stories to tell; stories that could change the lives of the Waverley women forever. The Waverleys have enough trouble on their hands. Claire has started a successful new venture, Waverley's Candies, but it's slowly taking over her life. Claire's sister Sydney is about to combust with her desire for a new beginning. And Sydney's fifteen-year-old daughter Bay has given her heart away to the wrong boy and can't get it back.

"Featuring characters from her beloved novel, Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen's new novel picks up ten years after that eventful summer when Claire Waverly's wild half-sister Sydney returned to Bascom and Claire met her now-husband Tyler. Things have settled down and Claire finds she has slipped back into a place of tightly sequestered sameness ... But when her father Russell shows up he brings with him information that Claire doesn't want to hear and that will challenge everything she thought she knew about herself"--Provided by publisher.