It was an unexpected legacy which brought Petra to the close village community of Mindon. An imposing stone house in the middle of the village, left to her by an old friend of her mother’s, promised a very different way of life from Petra’s lonely and unsettled life in Yorkshire, and she was immediately made welcome by the local residents – in particular, by the members of the village Amateur Dramatic Society. Presided over by the formidable Ursula, who liked to run things her way, the ambitious decision had been made (mainly by Ursula herself) to put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the next production. Petra, to her surprise and pleasure, was put in charge of the scenery.

          Rivalries, squabbles, love affairs and seething resentments threatened to scupper the production, and all Ursula’s management skills were needed to prevent disaster. But Petra had more pressing things on her mind than the set designs. A mystery from the past had begun to haunt her – and the answer to that mystery might solve the puzzle of why she had been left such a beautiful house by a total stranger.