When Serena Cassidy travels to Virginia to attend the 110th anniversary of Longworth College, she expects little more than an interesting trip and a chance to honor the memory of her parents, who had died the year before and had loved the college which was their alma mater.
She wants to find out more about Serena Longworth, the founder's wife, who was a great friend to her parents and after whom they had named her. Also, she hopes to relieve some of her loneliness and grief and to have a respite from her uncomfortable recent lifestyle and job.
But when she suddenly finds herself in 1908, she has no idea how she got there. And even as she begins to feel that this place and era are where she really belongs, and wonders if she is actually Serena Longworth, she questions how she can ever explain her strange presence to the much-too-attractive founder, Trenton Longworth, and his sister, Constance, with whom she comes to feel she could have a new family.