Over a hundred years ago the citizens of F- did something rather bad. And local school teacher
Catherine Evans has made writing the definitive account of what happened when Ilsbeth Clark
drowned in the well her life's work. The town's people may not want their past raked up but
Catherine is determined to shine a light upon that shameful event. For Ilsbeth was an innocent
after all. She was shunned and ostracised by rumour-mongers and ill-wishers and someone has to
speak up for her. And who better than Catherine who has herself felt the sting and hurt of
such whisperings? But then a childhood friend returns to F -. Elena is a successful author
whose book The Whispers Inside: A Reawakening of the Soul has earned her a certain celebrity.
In search of a new subject she takes an interest in the story of Ilsbeth Clark and announces
her intention to write a book about the long-dead woman focusing on the natural magic she
believes she possessed. And Elena has everything Catherine has not like a platform and
connections and no one seems to care that Elena's book will be pure speculation tainting
Ilsbeth's memory rather than preserving it. Catherine is determined that something must be done
and plots to blunt her rival's pen. However she had not allowed for the fact that the past
might not be so dead after all - that something is reaching out from the well disturbing her
reality. Before summer's over one woman will be dead the other accused of murder . . . but is
she really guilty or are there other forces at work? And who was Ilsbeth Clark really? An
innocent? A witch? Or something else entirely?
