Successful sculptress Kate Dawlish was young, talented and troubled. The blackout came out of nowhere and when she woke on the floor of her studio, Kate saw Tom for the first time and her world was forever changed.
Life seemed to begin for artist Tom Sanders the moment Kate opened her eyes. The kiss of life he was giving her turned out to be the kiss of his life. As Tom gets to know Kate, he discovers secrets; why her father walked out on his family; why her mother holds Kate responsible. Why twin sister Angie seems to resent her. There’s something else – something much darker. She begins to believe that she killed her stepfather and concealed his body, and yet it couldn’t be true – could it?
Two weeks before Kate’s wedding, there’s a serious crash when she’s driving Tom in her car. The crash is no accident – someone’s trying to kill her, and she sees the man in the fedora again. He is following her, but no one believes her, least of all her medical consultant Nick Siegel. A week later, the fedora man stabs her to death in her Exeter studio.
When Kate awakens in hospital, she discovers there was no crash. There is no Tom either, and she is devastated. She wasn’t stabbed, she’s been in a coma for weeks, and all that happened since the blackout was in her mind. She lives the family home she hates with Angie and financier Nick Siegel.
In her search for Tom, Kate becomes increasingly desperate until she uncovers the truth about her father and begins to understand. Nick is having an affair with Angie, and there’s a village not far from the house which shouldn’t exist, and a girl named Martha who seems to believe her.
Kate is led to believe that Nick and Angie want to have her committed, until she escapes with Martha’s help and finally finds proof that Tom exists. She returns to the house to confront her husband and sister, but the nightmare is just beginning for Kate…