Aislinn Marchánt, a writer and editorial consultant, is hired by the major New York publishing company, Kane Publishing House, to help determine why several submissions sent to them have mysteriously disappeared only to be published later by another publisher.  Are the editors at Kane simply not being diligent enough with the in-coming material, or is there something more sinister going on?  Working from her West Palm Beach home, Aislinn quickly becomes involved with the House of Kane as well as with Caldwell Kane, the man who hired her. 

 In evaluating the submissions being sent to Kane, Aislinn discovers that a nonfiction novel, Then There Was Light, sent to Kane is being released by another publishing house as a work of fiction.  After traveling to the mountains of North Carolina to meet the author of the nonfiction work, a lightning-strike victim who is left with unexplained powers, Aislinn is convinced that the person who wrote the work of fiction stole the idea. 

In her personal life, Aislinn learns that her former husband, Dr. Robert Marchánt, with whom she is still very close, is having medical problems and, therefore, having to face a crisis in his own career as chief surgeon at West Palm Beach Regional Hospital.  She also finds out that a nurse who works for her former husband has been following her and sending her threatening e-mail messages.  In her own work as editorial consultant, Aislinn convinces her elderly neighbor to rewrite what is a sentimental biography of her father and the Gilded Age into her own story--that of a passionate young daughter of a wealthy land developer and her friend, the son of a Black maintenance man.  Eventually Aislinn finds out that Tyler, the younger son of Caldwell Kane, has been giving manuscripts to a woman he has fallen in love with and who happens to be an editor for another publishing company, which explains the missing manuscripts sent to Kane Publishing House. 

As Aislinn works toward uncovering the various layers of truth of her former husband, her elderly neighbor, and Kane Publishing House, she continues to research her own novel, the story of a love between two people that becomes fractured because of the misunderstandings created by two different cultures.  Her research takes her to a botanica where a Santerian priest reveals the truth in her own life and a destiny that is joined to that of Caldwell Kane.