Attempting to blaze a new trail for women at the University College London in 1923, research assistant Saffron Everleigh becomes involved in solving the murder of a professor's wife who appeared to have been poisoned at a school dinner party.

"Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker--a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable...

"While taking photographs at an exposition in Seattle in 1909, Camera Girl Eleanor Bennett snaps an image of a woman in widow's clothes with deep sorrow etched in her expression and a young infant in her arms. Eleanor longs to study botany at the University of Washington and soon becomes fast friends with botanist Bill Reed, but she can't stop thinking about the widow in the photograph. She is stunned to learn Bill recognizes the woman as the sister-in-law...

While taking photographs at an exposition in Seattle in 1909, Camera Girl Eleanor Bennet snaps an image of a woman in widow's clothes with deep sorrow etched in her expression and a young infant in her arms. Planning to study botany at the University of Washington, Eleanor becomes friends with botanist Bill Reed. When she shows him the photograph of the widow, Bill recognizes the woman as the sister-in-law he believed lost in a shipwreck. As they...