SummaryRose Kirkland, a jewelry designer living in Santa Monica,
struggles with a troubled marriage and her inability to
have a child. In the midst of these tensions, she is
startled by a mysterious inner voice, that of a young woman
sent by her family to marry a man she has never met. Slowly
and startlingly, Rose begins to realize that the voice is
her own--a persona from a richly cultured past life, its
presence so compelling it permeates the present. With her husband's approval, Rose travels to Europe to
trace the origins of the voice. While on her journey she
inadvertently unravels a mystery surrounding the medieval
emperor, Frederick II and the legendary king, Prester John. The quest leads Rose to Oxford, England, to Vieste, her
father's birthplace on the Adriatic coast of southern
Italy, and finally to Pirou Castle in Normandy, France,
where Rose discovers a link to her own reality as past and
present fuse in an odyssey of desire and self-discovery.
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