The 1960s was a time of chaos and uncertainty in a world that sometimes seemed to be spinning out of control-especially for Emily Gillespie, who grew up in the small southern town of Burgaw, North Carolina, where children played in the streets and no one ever locked their doors. But Emily's marriage is not the fairytale that friends and family see-her husband is jealous and abusive. She had spent time in a mental institution years earlier following a devastating miscarriage, and now as anonymous, voiceless phone calls intrude into her carefully controlled world, she feels herself teetering on the edge of sanity. When her dog is poisoned, people she loves are killed in separate accidents, and her life is threatened, Emily reconnects with a childhood friend who wants to be much more. But she is determined to find inner strength that she's not even sure she possesses to build a safe, new life for herself and her children.