"As soon as Julia Beckett saw Greywethers, a handsome sixteenth-century farmhouse in a small Wiltshire village, she had a strange feeling that she was destined to live in it one day.  But when, many years later, it became her home, she found that the house's turbulent past began to intrude upon the present. "While becoming friendly with the residents of the village, including Geoffrey de Mornay, the handsome young squire, Iain, a local famer, and Vivien, the village pub landlady, Julia found herself being transported back in time as Mariana, who lived at Greywethers during the great plague of 1665.  She experienced, as Mariana, all the terrors and hardships of that grim time, and the dangers of the Civil War's aftermath, as well as falling in love with Richard de Mornay, the forebear of the present squire.  As her present-day relationships prospered, Julia increasingly felt that her other life as Mariana was threatening to overwhelm her.  She found that she had to play out the ancient drama and exorcise the past before she could find love and happiness in the present."