Publisher's Synopsis
Ericka has lost all of her self-confidence. She is terrified to escape her abusive relationship, and worse yet, she is forced to leave her son behind. He has bipolar disorder, so it's an especially difficult move for her to make, but she has no choice.
She escapes to Vermont, to a second home that belongs to her family, but she discovers that the house, and a place in the woods near it, have a dark history. She wonders if it explains some of the strangeness that still seems to hang over it. In learning about its past, she also discovers more about Neil, the person who eventually reveals its secrets to her, and why he seems to comprehend so much about her own plight. She realizes that Neil might also be the key to understanding more about her son, and how to bring him back into her life.
Neil, a youthful, almost-hippie sort, is the complete opposite of the imposing, demanding man Ericka left behind in Connecticut. Around Neil, Ericka feels young again, and she starts to remember the person she was before constant emotional abuse pulled her under. She is also keenly aware of the physical attraction between the two of them. Ericka finds a renewed sense of purpose in a new job taking care of Bill, a kind, elderly gentleman struggling with dementia. When she meets Bill's successful son Andrew, with the looks of a rugged, forty-something magazine model, her first instinct is to dislike him for his apparent neglect of his aging father. As she learns more about the family dynamics, however, her feelings about Andrew begin to change. Ericka is a young woman caught between worlds, bravely trying to start over wherever she can, with only a vague sense of the person she once was. She is nervously making what she thinks are the best decisions as a mother, while also trying to find her way back to herself and her youth, and realizing along the way that love, and building a new family, might still someday be possible.