"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."