A young woman struggling against forbidden passions and to make a life for herself is brought face to face with the dark secret of her birth . . .
Kate O'Sullivan was brought up in an orphanage in Ireland where the nuns ran a harsh regime. She is fifteen when she meets Declan Steele, a young priest with whom she falls passionately in love. She goes to live with him as his housekeeper, but the sexual tension between them becomes impossible to bear and she has to escape before the barriers between them come down.
She runs away to Dublin, and is taken under the wing of a cultured older man, Brenden Hyde, who helps her build a dazzling career as an artist. Brenden is gay but desperately wants a child and Kate, traumatised by the broken relationships in her life, gladly agrees to enter the safety of marriage to him. But on the very day of their wedding, Father Declan comes back into her life, and this time the temptation is too hard for either of them to resist.
In the turmoil and tragedy that follow, Kate's quest for love and security becomes a search for her true identity. The truth, when it emerges, is earthshattering!
