In late August 1898, reporter Emma Cross attends the final fête of the Newport social season and discovers the party's over for a visiting prince . . .
 
The approaching end of summer means it's time for the Harvest Festival, the last big event of the season, held by Mamie Fish, wife of millionaire tycoon Stuyvesant Fish, at their grand “cottage,” Crossways. The mansion is decked out in artificial autumn splendor and an extravagant scavenger hunt will be held. But the crowning jewel of the evening will be the guest of honor, Prince Otto of Austria.
 
As acting editor-in-chief of the Newport Messenger, Emma had hoped to leave her days as a society reporter behind her. But at the last moment, she must fill in at the Harvest Festival. With nearly every eligible daughter of Newport high society in attendance, Emma can almost hear romantic dreams shattering like glass slippers when the prince finally appears—as a corpse in the garden.
 
The prince was stabbed in the same manner as another man recently found on nearby Bailey's Beach, who strongly resembles a relation of Emma's presumed dead for nearly thirty years. It’s up to Emma to find a connection between the two victims—before a killer slips away like the fading summer . . .