While teaching at a Canadian university, ex-pat American English professor Sean O'Hara stumbles on the diary of his great-great-great grandmother, Bridget Ryan. With a doctorate in English literature based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Sean is drawn into Bridget's story when he discovers that she and Poe were contemporaries, and more than that, it appears they were friends for a time.

The story sweeps us into Bridget's life in Boston and Baltimore, as we begin to piece together the mystery that still surrounds the final few days of Poe's life. When the diary begins in 1925, 16-year-old Bridget's one burning desire is to follow her widower father's footsteps into medicine - she desperately wants to be admitted to the medical school. Having never admitted a woman before, the school has no intention of doing so now. Thus, Bridget is faced with finding another path for her life.

This is Bridget's story of how she came to know Edgar Allan Poe.