Reaching out over more than a hundred years, A Long Fatal Love Chase tells a story that will touch a whole generation of readers, a story so sensational it could not be published during Louisa May Alcott's lifetime. Rosamond Vivian has been brought up as a recluse by her heartlessly indifferent grandfather on a remote island off the English coast. Her only knowledge of the outside world is derived from the books she devours so voraciously. When Philip Tempest - charming, devastatingly handsome, and almost twice Rosamond's age - mysteriously appears one stormy night, he finds a peach ripe for the plucking.