Holly Barrett lives a very solitary, quiet life in a small town on the coast of Massachusetts. She has a five-year-old daughter called Katy, who she accidentally conceived the night she lost her virginity to the boy she'd had a crush on for years — and who ran a mile the minute he heard about her pregnancy — and the only other people in her life are her beloved grandfather, Henry, and her best friend Anna. All that changes when she meets Jack Dane, a man she falls rapidly and passionately in love with — and whom Katy and Henry also adore. Jack proposes just a few weeks after they meet, and they're married within six weeks. For once Holly feels like the heroine of her own life story, and she's happier than she's ever been. But then dark secrets start to emerge about Jack's past: it becomes clear that he's not been entirely honest about his earlier life in England. And it's suddenly frighteningly possible that rather than marrying the man who will save her and Katy from the small life they've got trapped in, Holly may have brought a monster into all their lives.