Two women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.

It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea. For both, it’s a new beginning in the country, and together they’re bringing Carreg Cottage back to life. Yet Ellen can’t hide a creeping unease. There’s the ominous iconography painted on their bedroom ceiling, the sinister doll hidden away in the chimney. And Tony seems more familiar with the peculiar villagers than he’s letting on.

Meanwhile, after nearly a decade away, young Iris returns to Cornwall seeking sanctuary in memories and longing for what she lost as a child. It was here that her mother died on the moors under a shroud of mystery and rumor—and was last seen alive in the isolated, long-shuttered cottage the Wyldes now call home.

Discovering more about each other and themselves, Ellen and Iris soon unite in a quest to uncover every dark secret this village—and the West Country mist—holds before it destroys them.

Lindsay Jayne Ashford is the bestselling author of the historical mysteries A Feather on the Water, The House at Mermaid’s Cove, The Snow Gypsy, Whisper of the Moon Moth, The Woman on the Orient Express, and The Color of Secrets, as well as the Megan Rhys contemporary crime series. The first woman to graduate from Queens’ College, Cambridge, Lindsay earned a degree in criminology and was a reporter for the BBC before becoming a freelance journalist, writing for a number of national magazines and newspapers. She was raised in Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, has four children, and now divides her time between a seaside home on the west coast of Wales and a farmhouse in Spain’s Sierra de Los Filabres. Lindsay enjoys kayaking, bodyboarding, and walking her dogs, Milly and Pablo. For more information, visit lindsayashford.com.