"Bookish suffragist Catriona Campbell is busy: An ailing estate, academic writer's block, and a tense time for England's women's rights campaign--the last thing she needs is to be stuck playing host to her father's distractingly attractive young colleague. Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women's suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires...

PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about "Chinese-y" things again. After years of grueling research, she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives and convinces herself it's her ticket out of academic hell. Her clumsy exploits to unravel the note's message lead to an explosive discovery. When her fiancé, Stephen Greene, embarks on a book tour...