Alice arrives to Hart's Crossing, in the wild foothills of turn of the century Alberta, a girl of no more than fourteen, to live with her aunt following her father's untimely death. There she will find love and heartbreak, and come to understand the darkness that lies in the hearts of others.

For all is not as it seems at Hart's Crossing. There is the stern and forbidding Andrew Hart, whose countenance strikes fear in Alice and who is hiding something terrible. But even Aunt Muriel and Jack, her love, are keeping their own secrets.

When they are revealed it is Alice who will pay the price. For she will find it is impossible to leave Hart's Crossing.