Sylvia is struggling through the aftermath of the doomed love affair which wrecked her marriage and damaged her relationship with her teenage daughter. Antonia, angry and resentful, has become a distant figure. She has always wanted to meet her grandmother, so, desperate to be close to Antonia again, Sylvia makes an impromptu decision to take her daughter to the forgotten corner of Devon where she spent her childhood.

To Sylvia's surprise, the estate's much-fabled hermit is still alive. Mute and mysterious, he was inapproachable when Sylvia was growing up. But now she is back after a forty-year absence, and she wants answers about her mother and her capacity for causing harm, even to those she loves. Especially to those she loves. When Sylvia finally approaches the hermit, he finally talks, and reveals more than Sylvia ever imagined.

Dark family secrets, intergenerational trauma, and the nature of love and loneliness are explored in this fourth novel from critically acclaimed author Louise Walters.