Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son Now shes returned home to Grays Island to reconnect with the son she left behind Her boy Jeremy now a sullen teenager is wrongly accused of rape and mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence Shes aided by Colin McGinty a recovering alcoholic and widower also recently returned to the island in the aftermath of his grandfathers death Colins grandfather a famous artist is best known for his haunting portrait Woman in Red which happens to be of Alices 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 secret that more than half a century later 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 in the form of his grandson the very man responsible for sending Alice to prison.
