Darling,
Let me lead you on a merry chase, shall I? If you want to come find me, you must solve a series of puzzles. Each one will lead to the next. Follow the path until you come to where I am.
-- Inez
You've never been married. But apparently when you woke up this morning you had a wife you'd been married to for twenty years. Inez hasn't just left you: she's gone back into the past and changed history so that the two of you never met.
Fortunately, for generations your family have been caretakers to a House that allows you to travel back and forth within your own timeline. All you need to do is return to the past, find your missing wife – one you have no memory of – and put history back the way it originally was.
She's even left a trail of clues to guide you: a series of word and logic puzzles, each one leading to the next, with herself waiting for you at the end. And it's more than just fun and games. She seems to be desperately, frantically trying to explain something to you. But you have no idea what.
Of course, you don't have to dance to her tune. There are other ways to unravel this knot. You can travel back to the key events in your past, looking for whatever it was that your wife has changed and set it right. Or you can just go back to the beginning of the story – the day the two of you first met – and court her all over again.
Actually, you can do all three. Just hold on to your housekey or you may end up lost in time forever.
THE RANDOM HOUSE consists of four interweaving narratives which the reader can jump back and forth between at will. Along the way there are twisting paths, secret passageways, trap doors, sidetracks, cul-del-sacs, labyrinths, escape hatches, and oubliettes – and no guarantee of how the story will end. No matter how many times you read it, never assume you've followed every possible path.