Time vanishes in this moving tale of love and loss, of a troublesome past and uncertain future, and with a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for the soul of their village.

Will Sawyer has a knack for inadvertently stirring up old ghosts in the crumbling northern New Mexican village of Guadalupe. He's lived there for over thirty years now, but everyone still wonders why he sticks around, including his native wife. Even so, life in Guadalupe has been relatively quiet until Will reluctantly agrees to fix up the collapsing ancestral house of Manuela García, an old, mysterious woman few remember, with a dark history even she has forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until Will discovers the bones of a small child buried in the adobe wall of the ancient house.

With spare style, wit as dry as New Mexico, and utter compassion for the struggling residents of Guadalupe, Rick Collignon gives us his best work of fiction, reminding us that while we may be through with the past, the past may not be through with us . . . and dark as the past may be, love and community can help us rise above it.