Montreal scholar Rhea Northway's life, both personal and professional, is at a standstill. Her solution is to write the definitive biography of the great 19th century Canadian novelist, Charles D'Arnell, the mysterious author of Lenora, a sweeping, romantic and tragic story about making the greatest sacrifice -- death and dishonour -- for love. However, without her knowledge, Rhea's interest in the novel and her work on the biography starts a harrowing descent into obsession, as she leaves her husband behind and travels first to Haworth, England, and then to Endless Bay, Nova Scotia, in search of information about D'Arnell. All of those touched deeply by D'Arnell's novel and Rhea's obsession -- D'Arnell's living relatives, Rhea, her husband, and fellow student Abelard Hearn -- come under the influence of the shadow cast across time by D'Arnell, and are caught by "Lenora's" destructive power, as if by the power of the sea, pounding against the cliffs at D'Arnell's place of death, Endless Bay.