Anny Butler never had a real family-until she married Lewis Aiken. Having spent her life caring for others, first for her own brothers and sisters, then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children, the love she finds with Lewis is everything she ever dreamed of. The family she meets through Lewis is not brethren in the traditional sense, rather a group of friends who have been inseparable since childhood. From first meeting them at the beach house they co-own, Anny finds a sense of security and love that fulfills a lifetime of yearning. As they grow closer, however, revealing confidences and forging emotional bonds, Anny begins to suspect everything is not as it seems and that the new loves she waited a lifetime for may hide a secret with a terrible price.

Anne Rivers Siddon's bestselling books include the novels Low Country and Up Island, and a work of nonfiction, John Chancellor Makes Me Cry. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and Brooklin, Maine.