Keep a secret. Tell a lie. Protect the family. At all costs.

A compulsively readable suspense thriller from Ngaio Marsh Award shortlisted author, Nikki Crutchley, which will keep you guessing and reading up until late into the night.

Iluka has been the only home that 18-year-old Ana has ever known. The beautiful wild pine plantation overlooking the Pacific Ocean where her grandfather builds furniture, her aunt runs an artists’ retreat and her uncle tends the land, is paradise, a private idyll safe from the outside world.

But the place holds a violent secret and when a stranger arrives, Ana will need to make a choice: to protect everything - and everyone - she holds dear or tell the truth and destroy it all.

An atmospheric, suspenseful, dark and twisty thriller in the tradition of Daphne du Maurier, Paula Hawkins, Anna Downes and JP Pomare.

Longlisted for the 2022 Ngaio Marsh Award

‘An enthralling thriller, as beautiful and deadly as an ocean storm … Crutchley achieves a perfect balance as she draws the reader into an eerie world filled with secrets, lies and twisted love.’ Rose Carlyle, The Girl in the Mirror

‘Many things make this thriller stand out … Crutchley’s meticulous writing and propulsive storytelling give the book a strange power’ North and South