In James Lake's novel, former globe-trotting botanist Devin Douglass has just finished his less than satisfying first year in academia when he hears about a local woman who owns a botanical garden and is rumored to have the nearly miraculous ability to heal sickly plants. So he sets out to unravel the many mysteries surrounding that woman, and in doing so discovers far more about mankind's magical relationship to the natural world than he ever could have possibly imagined.