"When Cary Stafford's marriage crumbles, her world collapses. She flees London for Turkey for a break but while she is there, the country is devasted by a terrible earthquake that kills thousands. As far as anyone can tell, she is dead. Olivia Georgiou is also English, but her life has taken a different path. Married to a Greek she met while travelling, she has two small children and a close family life on the tiny island of Halemni. When a shell-shocked Englishwoman arrives on their shore, Olivia takes the stranger in to her home. Kitty, as she calls herself, offers to make herself useful, wanting only a refuge and a place to stay indefinitely. But her background is shrouded in mystery. As Kitty and Olivia draw closer, so the similarities between them seem to magnify - so do the differences. When Kitty starts an affair with Olivia's brother, the emotional tension threatens to spill over into the claustrophobic winter community of the island, and a sense of menace begins to grow...