"Dexter Cooke: a child of privilege, loved by his parents, adored by his peers, could have been a star. Instead, by his mid-thirties he's mired in mediocrity - a guilt-ridden son and uninspired teacher who's trapped in a lacklustre marriage haunted by three miscarriages." "He's jolted out of his torpor by his student Susan Slater who experiences a sequence of paranormal visitations from a man named Gabriel at the Dancing Grasses conservancy. Could this be the same Gabriel, the charismatic shaman, whose spell Dexter fell under at seventeen? Why is he reappearing at Dancing Grasses, and why has he led Dexter and Susan to a corpse?" "This second coming of Gabriel propels Dexter into his past, forcing him to re-examine why he broke so disastrously with his parents, and how the failure of a long-ago love affair collapsed his hopes for the future." Secrets revealed and unsuspected connections set Dexter upon a path of self-discovery, one that promises freedom from the damning flame of separation.