It is 1980 and Eighteen-year-old Emma James leaves Ripon to travel on a Gap Year to Europe. She is alone but finds company in keeping a diary.

After a nasty incident in France she moves to Athens where she befriends Jake and Beattie all swearing to be life-long friends; that is until an argument breaks out and Emma does something that will haunt her all her life. She returns to England in disguise and changes her name so she will never be found.

Now as Kate Barratt she is a figurehead for a charity and happily married to a very wealthy man with a daughter she adores. Life appears to be good but there are cracks beneath the surface and when the past comes back to haunt her, the security she holds dear folds beneath her, endangering her family and herself. To find peace she will have to return to the past and all the terrors it holds for her.

This is a creepy novel that will have you turning the pages fast and furious because what starts with a hopeful dream soon turns into a nightmare. Julia Crouch is a master craftsman of the psychological thriller and I shall certainly be reading more of her work.