When Lacey O'Neill was a teenager, an emotionally overwrought husband stepped into the battered women's shelter on North Carolina's Outer Banks where Lacey and her mother were volunteering and shot Lacey's mother. He killed one woman but destroyed two families — Lacey's and his own.

Now a stained glass artist in her late twenties, Lacey lives in the old Kiss River light keeper's house and is struggling to overcome her own destructive behavior when she receives shocking news. Her childhood friend has died, leaving Lacey to parent her troubled daughter, and Lacey's mother's killer is up for parole. While Lacey and her family cope with these challenges, the shattering truth about her well-respected, good-hearted mother unfolds. Nothing is what it seemed. Through it all, Lacey learns that with the truth comes forgiveness, healing and the courage to finally open her heart.