The beautiful city of Venice has been Lydia's home for many years. It's a place she loves and where she's found a sense of peace and fulfilment. Then one day she glimpses a young man's face in the crowd that threatens to change all that. He's a heart-stopping reminder of a dreadful secret she believed she had banished to the past...

As a young child, Lydia and her sister are sent to live with grandparents they've never even met before. It's a cruel and loveless new world for them, and it teaches Lydia to grow up fast. She learns to keep secrets and to trust sparingly. And through it all she suppresses her grief and guilt, believing she is to blame for her mother's death.

Now, twenty-eight years later, Lydia is persuaded to leave behind the safe new life she has created for herself and return to England to face the past. And maybe her future.

Compelling and heartbreaking, with a touch of bittersweet romance, this is Erica James at her finest.