The past casts a long shadow, especially when it points to a woman's first love. Her name was Mary Grace until she fell in love with the French exchange student visiting her family's Nebraska farm. Fran ois renamed her "Aglaia"-after one of the beautiful Three Graces of Greek mythology-and set the seventeen-year-old girl longing for something more than her parents' simplistic life and faith. Now, fifteen years later, Aglaia works as a costume designer in Denver. Her budding success in the city's posh arts scene convinces her that she's left the na ve farm girl far behind. But "Mary Grace" has deep roots, as Aglaia learns during a business trip to Paris. Her discovery of sensual notes that Fran ois jotted into a Bible during that long-ago fling, a silly errand imposed by her mother, and the scheming of her sophisticated mentor all conspire to create a thirst in her soul that professional success can't quench. THE THIRD GRACE takes you on a dual journey across oceans and time in the footsteps of a woman torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self.