Searching through a little-used cupboard at home, Glyn Peters chances upon a photograph he has never seen before. Taken in high summer, many years earlier, it shows his wife, Kath, holding hands with another man.

In 1972, the tiny windswept town of DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the terrifying disappearance of Nicky Jack Harjo. When he was no more than a baby, his pyjama bottoms were found on the banks of Willow Creek. Nearly 30 years later, Nicky mysteriously returns.

Jane Hudson never thought she would return to Heart Lake. Her years there as a scholarship girl ended in a double tragedy. Now she is back, struggling to adjust to her new life teaching Latin and as a single mother. But the events that haunted her memories for so many years begin to recur in front of her eyes.

When five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the Winters family are exposed. Fifteen years later, Caroline, a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in People Magazine. Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, she embarks on a search for her missing sister, devoting herself to salvaging her broken family.

'What a storyteller! What an original new voice!' Adriana Trigiani

A highly personal tale of what it's like to fall apart whilst the world watches.