Romance writer joanna boden has just published her first novel and the book's moderate success has given her the confidence to leave her 9-5 job to write full-time. with her advance, she has bought her first home - a 1970s city town house, one of twenty-four in the row house development on her street. not long after moving in, she discovers that her home, along with the rest of the row-houses, was only possible because of the demolition of a dozen or more fine edwardian houses which had stood on their own large lots. she is intrigued to learn from the elderly owner of the one surviving original house on the block, rosalie campbell, that the project had been passionately protested by many, including rosalie's own activist daughter, terry, who disappeared before the development was finished. obsessed with terry's story, jo's own comfortable life (and her writing) changes dramatically. and what's going on with jo's garden and why won't anything grow there?