Catherine O'Connor has a wild streak in her, as vivid and colourful as the red hair that cascades about her shoulders. Courageously she has flouted convention to become the mistress of the man she loves, Boyo Hopkins, thereby making a dangerous enemy of the woman he has married. Bethan Hopkins is an older woman, a woman of breeding whose wealth and power have made her a merciless adversary. Bent on vengeful destruction she begins to take apart Honey's Farm, Catherine's birthplace, selling it off in small parcels of land so that it can never be reclaimed. As she fails to destroy her husband's love for Catherine, Bethan becomes more and more embittered. She retreats into a world inhabited by the ghosts of her forebears and becomes like a spider, putting out her deadly trap in order to ensnare the woman she hates.