When their youngest child is savagely killed in Russia in the early 1900's, Julius and Frieda Goodkin seek a new life in America. In Toledo, Ohio, they find the road not paved in gold but instead in a conflict of cultures and ideology that severs the relationship with Julius' brother, Jacob. Hoping life would be easier in sunny California, Julius and Frieda with their four young children, Herman, Manuel, Ada and Paul, leave family and friends to encounter even greater obstacles in Los Angeles. When Julius takes a new wife, Ada discovers a horrible truth and seeks to escape. After years of a loveless existence, she runs away. Found the first time, she flees again and is lost forever at age twenty-two--until now. Ada vanishes to San Francisco where she ultimately finds love, but it is accompanied by an evil with tentacles all over the world. There she is involved with the handsome Daryl, the beautiful Helen, a black trunk and a brutal murder. Generations later, Lesley Goodkin, receives a mysterious letter from a man she has never met. This letter from the past plunges Lesley into Secrets of Time leading her to a sibylline detective, an elderly woman, an enigmatic attorney and a conflict of moral and ethical issues that will shape her family forever. Join the many generations of Goodkins as they discover intimate secrets that unravel the family's greatest mystery.