“You’re like the treasure box filled with all the laughter I’ve lost.”

When social outcast Mercy Blagden accidentally cuts herself on an ancient ruby dagger, her blood mixes with the blood of a cursed seventeenth century English lord and casts her into his time, his castle, and his father’s dungeon. It’s one thing that the young man who takes pity on her and sets her free in his care has the kindest heart of any guy she’s ever known, sees beyond her scarred face, and claims her blood can heal him. It’s another when she begins to fall in love with him and learns she’s been sent there to kill him.

Josiah Ashmore, seventh son of the duke of Dorset, turns every head and sets almost every heart to fluttering when he enters a room and sweeps his guileless, jaunty smile over all, rich and poor. He’s well loved by everyone who knows him, most especially by his father and six older brothers. But his smiles, even his joy, are well-practiced to convince others that he isn’t the devil they fear from some age-old prophecy. They love him but they keep their children from becoming his friends and their daughters from becoming his wife. For all he has, he lives a lonely life. But when he meets the mysterious woman who claims to be from another time–before he speaks to her or touches her–he knows he’s been waiting for her all his life. The more time he spends with her, the more hope fills his heart for a brighter future, and the more genuine his happiness becomes until he’s convinced that now that he can breathe, he will suffocate without her.

Mercy doesn’t care about some stupid prophecy. She’s been alone her whole life in a self-imposed prison waiting for him to set her free. With his smile and his kiss he fills all her empty spaces and makes her whole. Her life finally has a purpose. To love Josiah Ashmore and to be loved by him. But can their love survive the cursed ruby dagger when it brings Josiah’s worst fears to the castle doors and then hurls Mercy back to the twenty-first century? And what will happen when, after four years, Mercy finally finds a way back to the man who holds her heart and discovers that he wants nothing more than to crush it in his fingers?

Will Mercy use the dagger to fulfill her destiny? Or will she create a new path paved with forgiveness like a hopeful light. A light that can shine in a lonely monster’s darkness?