This book opens with the disappearance of nine-year-old Ally Buckley, a circumstance which bears too much resemblance to another recent and chilling event. Fear spreads throughout the New England fishing village of Coffins Reach and the local church that Sadie and her family attend. When Sadie discovers a drawing done by Ally among her abusive husband's possessions, she suspects danger may be closer to home than she'd ever known possible.
This novel interweaves elements of mystery and suspense with a message of hope. The novel brings healing to those wounded by legalism in the church. Mystery writer Sharon Colebrook finds herself the unexpected recipient of her deceased Aunt Katie's papers, and hopes to learn about a murder Katie had hinted at years before. But as Sharon and her husband Jeff begin to investigate, the carefully kept facade of her strict religious family begins to crumble. Secrets, long buried, begin to surface, and only God's grace can put this family back together again.
The lives of five homeless people living in a church on an island are shattered when one of them is murdered. Meanwhile, two states over, another investigation is begun, a seeming unrelated one. But what is discovered shatters the island dwellers to the very core and intertwines the lives of the island dwellers as they seek to make peace with themselves, their lives, and God.
When Margaret Collinwood inherits her childhood home in Coffins Reach, Maine, she returns to the seafront house hoping to rest, paint, and to find the peace she has lost after the death of her daughter and the subsequent breakup of her marriage. But Margaret's return to her family home forces her to face difficult childhood memories surrounding the fatal accident that took the life of her sister twenty-five years earlier. As Margaret begins to examine the past, strange things start happening in the present. As she moves between her childhood memories, the ghostly legends surrounding her historic house, and the trendy cafes of the Maine coast, Margaret uncovers the truth hidden in long-buried family secrets. And in facing the past she finds new hope for her future.