Having returned home to Wales for her mother's funeral, actress Kate Rivers is overwhelmed by her past and forced to take stock of her life. From nursing her depressed mother as a child, through to her successful career and relationship with handsome photographer, Paul. past and present bombard Kate as she revisits the cottage and village in which she grew up. Her mother recovered her health and enjoyed her daughter's stage and TV success. And Kate has a comfortable London life in acting and as a partner and unofficial stepmother to Paul's unlikeable twin daughters. But now, when she needs him most, Paul is not there, tragedy having overtaken his own family. And as she renews old friendships and faces up to the pain of her childhood, Kate finds herself questioning their relationship and drawn to her charismatic - and married - cousin, Rhydian. But is her affair a second chance at happiness or just a dangerous infatuation?

Brought up and educated in West Wales, Sian James is the author of twelve novels, including Love and War, Return to Hendre Ddu, and Storm at Arberth, and two collections of short stories. She has twice won the Yorkshire Post Prize for fiction and her novel A Small Country was filmed as the award-winning Calon Gaeth. Her translation of Kate Roberts' The Awakening, is also published by Seren.Twice-winner of the Yorkshire Post Prize.