One night not long after her 10th birthday, 19th-century railroad heiress Aimee Crocker sees a vision of a woman in white surrounded by shadow; the next morning, she finds out her beloved father has died suddenly, making Aimee a 10-year-old multi-millionaire. Packed off to finishing school at 15, briefly engaged to a prince, then romantically entangled with a bullfighter, she elopes at 18 with a scion of the Old South who claims to have won her in a poker game. En route to her honeymoon, she sees the woman again, and moments later, the train jumps the tracks, resulting in a fiery wreck that kills more than a dozen passengers. Thus begins the opulent and extravagant life of Aimee Crocker. When her and her husband divorce in the scandal of the century, Aimee finds herself a globetrotter, traveling from Hawaii to Borneo to Shanghai and beyond, Aimee picks up the deed to an island, multiple lovers, a second husband, and several tattoos, but remains uneasy and restless, and riddled with tragedy – the Shadow Woman appearing before every pitfall. As the 20th century begins, Aimee makes a new home in New York City with her third husband, reinventing herself as a Broadway patron and extravagant hostess. But all too soon, misfortune rears its ugly head again in the form of fire, and poison. Does she have the strength to build yet another life for herself? And if she does, can she finally achieve the happiness she’s longed for all these years – and leave the Shadow Woman behind?
