Elizabeth Ash is on the run from her foundering marriage. With her sidekick, Lynn, she has fled to England for a month, where the cool air is a tonic and adventure might be at hand.

Seeking solitude, Elizabeth's husband, Henry, has holed up in her sister's Vermont summerhouse to begin writing the book he hopes will transform his life. But Henry is more alone and less isolated than he bargained for. A year earlier his brother-in-law, Fitz, dropped dead in the same house. Fitz's ghost is everywhere, especially so after Henry inadvertently discovers Fitz's intimate life story stored in the Macintosh in the study. I want to be honest, Fitz has written, I want candor nakedness, adventure.

I no longer want what I have. Everyone lives secret lives, Henry thinks, seated before the cold light of another man's computer at midnight, which is what one means by admitting that one can never really know another person. A cliche that offers comfort to the profoundly disappointed. What are we afraid of, I ask you. The surprise arrival of Helen, a summer resident who figures significantly in the dead man's diary, helps to lead Henry toward the crucial breakthrough he's been seeking.

Deftly written in several distinct voices, This Time Last Year is a novel about resolution and redemption.