This book is quite different from others by the author. Several members of a German family, along with a POW from Scotland, are escaping to the west in advance of the Russian army as they move into Germany at the end of WWII. A Jewish man who has spent the war pretending to be a German joins them along the way. The other character in the book is a woman who has survived the labour camps and is being forced to march to an unknown destination.

Alice and George Hayward have a very violent relationship that many in the small rural community in Vermont are aware of, yet powerless to stop. When Alice and George are found dead, an apparent murder-suicide, Reverend Stephen Drew is not surprised and feels a bit guilty that he hadn’t seen it coming. Not far into the story we learn the minister has a few secrets. The plot thickens when the minister begins a relationship with a best-selling author who believes in the power of angels and their auras. I enjoyed the book, but not as much as Midwives. Perhaps it was because I knew the author was going to provide a surprise at the end, so all the way through I was trying to figure out what the surprise would be.