Unfolding with grandeur and suspenseful inevitability, Mason's Retreat tells the story of a family on the shore of Maryland on the eve of World War II. After many years of extravagant expatriate living in England, Edith and Edward Mason and their two sons sail back to America to take up residence at the Retreat, a crumbling family estate on the Chesapeake Bay. Although Edward fails as a gentlemen farmer, his wife and sons -- unnoticed by him -- begin to flourish in America, making unbreakable alliances with both land and people. Yet with the coming war, the family's drift toward destruction inexorably quickens, exposing the corrosive effects of silence on love.