The Winterthur Chronicles: The Preserve

This place called Winterthur.... The DeWinters are an illustrious family going back to the Normans...a line of warriors, knights and decorated agents to the Crown, their family sigil a snowflake comprised of spears. The modern-day House of DeWinter is a more motley lot on the surface...Gwendolyn, the sharp-tongued, bewitching iconoclast...Gabriel, the brooding young scion with the skillset of an assassin...and Galen Palladin, their battle-toughened steward with a mysterious past. The world is teetering on the brink of catastrophic change. Can the DeWinters carry forward their celebrated legacy by safeguarding a remnant of civilization before everything descends into chaos? Something about the grounds surrounding the ancestral enclave-the "numinous airs" as described by family physician and confidante Alastair Wyndham-draws the right people for the needs to come. Often, these individuals arrive unwittingly on Winterthur's doorstep...some rescued from injury, some sensing they've been guided there, others drawn by romantic notions that will be tested. Each will discover skills and strengths they didn't know they possessed-along with a sense of Purpose they never dreamed possible. David Farreday, a young architect based in Cambridge, England, is striking forth on his own after a stint at a corporate design firm in London. He and wife Ella, a botanist, dive into the environmental movement-he, into green architecture; she, into fostering heirloom crops and local food networks. Although things have been tight, they've gained a sense of fulfillment, seizing this opportunity for unbridled creativity and a chance to focus on the Big Picture. Then, one idyllic afternoon in the Yorkshire Dales, their trusty old Range Rover is forced off a country lane, sending them crashing into a ravine. They awaken to find themselves cared for in a secluded enclave called Winterthur, thrown into a world of intrigue and surrounded by an odd assemblage of individuals united in a larger-than-life mission. It is a mission the couple finds themselves joining, to their surprise, with heartfelt passion and a sense of camaraderie they have never known. This band of futurists faces opposition and the transformation of their world head-on. From reclusive scientists to seductresses plying ancient arts; monastic secret agents to young aristocrats turned shadowy operatives, all strive to save what they can, while they can.