Book Description

Annie Dales has been intrigued her whole life by the strange legacy left by her great-great-grandmother. In 1884, Grandma Sarah was only twelve years old and foretold that the second daughter in Annie's generation was to be named Annie McGuire. WHY did Sarah insist on naming her? HOW did she know Annie would meet and fall in love with a man named McGuire over a century later, after having been married once before? WHY did Annie begin to feel that she had met Sarah before? WHAT had happened to the satchel full of gold coins worth forty thousand dollars in 1884, the same year Sarah named her? WHO was the Annie in Sarah's life who so influenced her? Annie Dales and David McGuire become obsessed with these questions after they meet. After they accidentally discover the portal to the past, they fall back through time one hundred and twenty years into Sarah's life in 1884. Joy, awe and astonishment-all vie for their attention. There, in the Terre Haute, Indiana of another century, an incredible unbelievable adventure begins. Annie and David visit the Terre Haute of the nineteenth century for only four wonderful, poignant days. The simplicity and joie de vivre of the times are captivating. The simple farm family and the sophisticated couple from the future bond almost immediately. Within days Sarah's grandfather and uncle are brutally murdered for their gold and Annie and David grieve with the family, knowing all the while that the deaths were predestined. A nasty hotel clerk trying to pin the murder of Sarah's grandfather and great-uncle on them is sidetracked at the last minute. Escaping one step ahead of the law, and breathing a sigh of relief, Annie and David are at last back in their own time. As if the hidden cache of gold has waited all these years for only Annie to find it, clues hidden in plain sight brilliantly make sense. The satchel is revealed behind a false wall in the basement of Annie's house. The final piece of Annie's happiness falls into place when David tells Annie he is just going to have to marry her, not everyone can say that their love was preordained over a century before their births. Sarah may have blessed their love by writing Annie's last name as David's in the journal, but Annie and David made their own love in this century and the last.