A modern-day writer and a Harlem Renaissance artist are connected by a painting with a deadly secret in this gripping dual-timeline gothic thriller.

Shanice Pierce knows better than to heed bad omens. But it's hard to ignore the signs when she finds herself newly single and out of a job on the same seemingly cursed day.

Then, while cleaning out her grandmother's house, Shanice comes across a painting. Drawn to the haunting portrait in a way she can't explain, Shanice accepts her grandmother's offer to keep the family heirloom.

She soon uncovers the story of the artist, a Harlem Renaissance painter named Estelle Johnson. The young woman was taken under wing by the wealthy art patron Maude Bachmann-or "Godmother" as she insisted her artists called her-and vanished shortly after Bachmann's brutal murder.