At fifty-five, Madeline Harper faces an unexpected plot twist in her own life, much like the romantic tales she pens. Once a celebrated romance author, she now confronts a crumbling marriage and a career at the brink of collapse. Her latest manuscript is rejected, and her agent delivers an ultimatum: reinvent your writing or risk fading into obscurity.

Special Agent Constant Marlowe is tasked with taking over the investigation of an obsessed serial killer trolling the small town of Clark Valley in the quiet—and eerie—plains of the Midwest. Two female victims in quick succession, the same brutal MO, and every indication that victim number three is only days away. Also in the killer’s scope is Constant herself. When she interviews a local family who may be potential witnesses, she leads the devil to their doorstep, throwing their lives into chaos.

Susan Sheridan knows Martha’s Vineyard like the back of her hand. She grew up there as the eldest of the three Sheridan Sisters, their father the longtime owner of the Sunrise Cove Inn in Oak Bluffs. The Inn, the water, the sun all spun with laughter, and love, with the most important people—her family and friends. It was her glittering, perfect life—until it wasn’t. Tragedy struck over twenty years ago, and Susan has hardly said a word to her sisters or her father or anyone else she ever loved. Not until now.

When the Chambers sisters receive an invitation from their jet-setting aunt to spend the entire month of December at the family's cabin in Asheville, North Carolina, they have one question—why? The retreat, tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains, may be the site of many happy childhood holidays and summers, but it also holds sad memories. The sisters and their aunt have spent twenty-five years avoiding the cabin and renting it to strangers. Why would Aunt Elizabeth want her "dearest darling" nieces to put their busy lives in three different states on hold and spend a month in the mountains?

When Eliza Whitney loses both her beloved husband and her high-powered job in the same month, she’s uncertain what the next chapter of her life will look like. At 53, she’s too young to retire and too old to start over. Then her estranged father’s widow contacts her and asks her to come to Sanibel Island to help settle his affairs. Eliza sees the trip to a place called Shellseeker Beach as a distraction from her loss and maybe a way to get some closure on the difficult relationship she'd had with her father.