She was discovering loneliness. No longer living in gossiping clamour, she was enveloped by a silence relieved only by the rhythm of the surf.
A murder trial without a body, a seashore village destroyed by guilt and suspicion... Given a simple choice Alice would never have gone to live there.
The bleak Somerset peninsula is at risk from the treacherous tides, the people are cold hearted. Charles, her lover, can't wait to escape. Alice, though, uses her solitariness to begin writing the poems she always meant to write.
Then she meets Joe, who has decided to break his silence about the tragedy that wrecked his life and became a stain on the history of the village. But is he telling the truth? And will anyone believe him if he is?
Alice finds herself the sole befriender of the man shunned by a village that claims he got away with murder.