The book begins by showing readers the end, or at least one end. The police are called to a home after a dead body is spotted inside. The house turns out to contain many more horrors than just one dead body. As near as anyone can tell, the dead woman had had two young women, her nieces, locked up in her home. One of the nieces escaped, killed her, and died before she even made it out of the house. The other niece was found still locked up, dead from the rat poison her aunt had been putting in her food.
Niall, a young postal worker, finds a mysterious diary in the post office's dead-letter bin. The niece who managed to escape and kill her aunt had written it. In her diary, Fiona told the story of the things that led to their aunt locking them up. Fiona became enamored with a drifter who settled in her village, a charming man named Jim. Unfortunately, so did her aunt. By the time Fiona realized there was something dark and deadly behind Jim's good looks, it was too late. Niall becomes obsessed with the story of Fiona, her sisters, and Jim, but Fiona's diary only tells part of the story. If Niall wants to find out the rest, he's going to have to go hunting in Fiona's home village for her sister Roisin's diary.
