"A magnificent third entry in an intelligent, thoughtful, and absorbing series." —Kirkus Reviews

The Botanist Mendoza is never happier than when she is working on her own to preserve extinct plants for the Dr. Zeus Company to bring into the future. Then, she can focus on her work instead of the heartbreak of her lost mortal lover, Nicholas, who died in Elizabethan times. Sometimes, however, the Company sends her on assignment where she must interact with other immortal Preservers, or worse: mortals themselves.

This assignment brings Mendoza to the California of 1862, just in time to get samples of plants that will soon go extinct in a long drought. As the Civil War rages in the east, Mendoza and her fellow immortals watch movies from a future Hollywood. While her work proceeds apace, she is shocked to meet Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, a mortal Englishman who resembles Nicholas exactly. She quickly realizes that he is more than he seems, and that she would do anything to keep him from dying the way her previous lover did.

Mendoza must deal with unexplained time phenomena in Laurel Canyon, fellow Company agents with their own agendas, and Edward, who has troubles of his own. If she breaks one of the Company’s most stringent rules for Edward, she may meet a fate even the immortals only whisper about . . .