Andrea Birch Rossi inherits an old family homestead in a seaside town on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Like her marriage, the two-hundred-year-old house is falling apart. When Andrea learns of her husband’s most recent betrayal, she leaves him and Boston and faces the challenge of giving the old house, once occupied by her ancestors, a new life.

She hires a contractor, and they immerse themselves in restoring the home. As she searches the attic and barn, Andrea discovers a treasure trove of artifacts and photographs belonging to past generations of the Birch family. She researches them to learn how she is related, becoming obsessed with the diaries of her great-great-great-grandmother, Abigale Birch. Abigale writes of her father’s lust for another woman, a brother who betrayed her from the grave, and the failings of her own son. Although disturbed when she reads her grandmother’s accounting of her revenge on a husband who manipulated and deceived her, the revelation of a stinging truth leaves Andrea considering the same action.

At a crossroads in her own life, Andrea must decide if she follows the path of vengeful, bitter Abigale, or has the courage to forge one of her own.