Sometimes the only way forward is to go back.

Ten years have passed since David Mortimer last saw Anna Russell. Their love affair abruptly ended when Anna disappeared.

Drifting through life ever since, David has never married, and is devoted only to his scientific work and to the book he has always meant to write, the story of the extraordinary plant explorer in China, Ernest Wilson.

But David's isolation is about to change. He receives news that Anna has been seriously injured in an accident. More devastating still is the revelation that he has a daughter, Rachel, whom he has never seen. Both mother and daughter now urgently need his help - and more than one danger is threatening them.

This is a story of two journeys, separated by time and place, but with the same goal. To find a way through the mountains, and to bring back something of infinite beauty that might otherwise have been lost forever.