Suddenly, in the middle of a crowded Venice street, Lydia glimpses a face that takes her back to England, back to her childhood and to a dreadful secret she believed she had banished to the past...

As children, Lydia and her sister were sent to live with grandparents they'd never even met. It was a cruel and loveless new world for them, and it forced Lydia to grow up fast. She learned to keep secrets and to trust sparingly, and through it all she was shadowed by grief and guilt.

The as an adult, the beautiful city of Venice gave Lydia peace, fulfilment and even love. But a single moment, a stranger's face forces Lydia to revisit the past she has been hiding from for the last twenty-eight years...