1901: Isabella Winterbourne has suffered the worst loss a woman can know, and can no longer bear her husband nor his oppressive upper-class family. On a voyage between London and Sydney to accompany a priceless gift to the Australian parliament, Isabella is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the sun-drenched Queensland coast. But in this strange new place, she finds she cannot escape her past quite as easily as she'd hoped. 2011: A woman returns from Paris to her beachside hometown to reconcile with her sister. But she, too, has a past that is hard to escape, and her sister is not in a mood to forgive her. Strange noises at night and activity at the abandoned lighthouse raise her curiosity, and she finds herself investigating a century-old town mystery.