Kate Tranter is fatherless - or is she? The evidence of the tombstone she finds in the churchyard seems conclusive. And yet... The tombstone disappears and Kate is left with a mystery about which her family either knows nothing or will tell nothing. Her search for the truth leads her to Sattin Shore: and the way to Sattin Shore turns out to be a way into the past.

Her two elder brothers, her grandmother, her new friend Anna and her missing father all have a part to play in Kate's search to fit the jigsaw pieces of past and present to find a new picture for the future.