In the shadow of a great cedar tree, a young under-gardener's world goes dark. John Grange has only his steady hands, his honest heart, and his dreams of winning Mary Ellis, the bailiff's daughter. But when a fall from those lofty branches leaves him blind, John discovers that losing his sight means losing nearly everything else: his position, his independence, and perhaps the woman he loves. Enter Daniel Barnett, a scheming rival who sees opportunity in John’s misfortune and sets his sights on both Mary and the promotion that should have been John’s. What unfolds is a Victorian tale of love tested by catastrophe, class barriers that refuse to bend, and one man’s desperate fight to prove that blindness need not mean invisibility. Fenn, a master of working-class drama, weaves a story where the true eclipse is not of the body but of the spirit and the question becomes whether love can survive the dismantling of everything a man thought he was.
