The sixteenth century was a time of great religious upheaval in Europe. As voices rose against the excesses of the medieval Church in northern Europe, the Inquisition fueled by Pope Leo X against infidels raged in Spain.Isobel Thirlwall has a gift, a gift passed down from the Talbot side of the family. She has inherited the ability to see, communicate with and send on earthbound spirits. Assisted by her great aunt, Abbess Isobel Talbot of Lambley Abbey, Isobel learns to control her gift. Encounters with the world of earthbound spirits contain many challenges: spirits who do not realize they are dead, malevolent spirits wishing to harm the living, spirits who have died by violence or plague. Seeking out earthbound spirits, Isobel's mission becomes to understand the full measure of her gift and use it to assist those spirits bound to the earthly plane. She learns to be cautious about exposing her gifts when she discovers that a Talbot ancestor with this gift was taken by the Church and subsequently disappeared. Her greatest threat comes not from the dead but from the living. When a Spanish Dominican priest who accompanied Catherine of Aragorn to England discovers her, the hunter becomes the hunted.