Until her beloved father dies unexpectedly, Claire, 28, has always lived in the present. She was not yet five when she lost her mother but her childhood memories, mostly reconstructed by her father’s imagination, helped her to navigate life without maternal love. Whilst sorting out her father’s affairs, she finds a letter which makes her realise that her mother’s life was more of a fragmented puzzle than she had been led to believe. Determined to exhume the missing pieces, she leaves Brittany for Scotland where she is convinced her mother’s secret past will be revealed. Chance encounters along the way bring their share of friendship, deceit, death and unconventional love, each step taking her nearer to the truth. As Claire delves deeper and deeper into her mother’s past, she is drawn into the treacherous and murky history that so many tried to bury, dragging in its wake the people close to her. By slowly taking her mother’s place, she unwittingly rekindles a love triangle with tragic consequences. Will she find out before it is too late that her desire to open Pandora’s box will change her life for ever?
A novel which examines how our past, present and future are neither simple nor in any way perfect. A dual timeline shows how long buried secrets from the 1940s will have dangerous repercussions in the present day.
