She knew from the tremors that rose up through the house. She knew what he was going to do. He was coming back for her. And this time there would be no way out.
Beyound tall iron gates fastened shut with a length of chain, lies stark, beautiful Trawbawn. Here's haunted by a dark, mysterious past and largely ignored by the people of nearby Skibbereen, lives the reclusive Lydia Beauchamp.
But Ma Beauchamp's private existence is interrupted when a stranger arrives--a young man called Adam, who wanders into the vast grounds of Trawbawn and becomes one of Lydia's most welcome contacts with the outside world.
When Lydia sets her new confidant a challenge, he accepts --Adam must travel to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. But it is a task tainted by menace and soon the unlikely friends are entwined in a deadly game...