Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her young son. Now she’s returned home to Gray’s Island, WA, to reconnect with the Jeremy, son she left behind, who is now a sullen teenager. When Jeremy is wrongly accused of rape, mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence. She is aided by Colin McGinty, a recovering alcoholic and 9/11 widower, who returns to the island in the aftermath of his grandfather’s death. Colin’s grandfather, a famous artist, is best known for his haunting portrait, “Woman in Red,” which happens to be of Alice’s grandmother.

In a tale that weaves the past with the present, we come to know the story behind the portrait, of the forbidden wartime romance between William McGinty and Eleanor Styles, and the deadly secret that bound them more tightly than even their love for each other. A half century later, that secret is about to be unburied, as Alice and Colin are drawn into a fragile romance of their own, and the ghost of an enemy from long ago surfaces.