Born in a mission in China, Lucy Waring now finds herself with 15 small children to feed. How she tackles this task gets her thrown into the grim prison of Chengfu, where she meets a man about to die. He asks her a cryptic riddle, and its mystery echoes through all that befalls Lucy in the months that follow, even when she is brought to England, trying to make a new life with the Gresham family. Unused to English ways, she is constantly in disgrace and is soon involved in the long and bitter feud between the Greshams and the family who live across the valley in the house called Moonrakers. In England Lucy discovers danger, romance, heartache, and mystery as strange events lead her to doubt her own senses. It is only when Lucy returns to China that she finds the answers to the mysteries of her past. It is there, at the moment when all seems lost, that she finally finds where her heart belongs.

Madeleine Brent was the pseudonym used by Peter O’Donnell, who also created the legendary thriller heroine Modesty Blaise. Madeleine Brent’s real identity was one of publishing’s best kept secrets. The nine Madeleine Brent romances include Tregaron’s Daughter, Moonraker’s Bride, Kirkby’s Changeling, Merlin’s Keep, The Capricorn Stone, The Long Masquerade, A Heritage of Shadows, Stormswift, and Golden Urchin.