Four lives. Four defining moments which will bring them together. Owen Abingdon is haunted by nightmares of the Merfolk. He believes they have stolen his little sister who vanished while he was meant to be minding her on the beach, but he was only a child himself. Is it fair for his mother to blame him? Catherine Hoyle's perfect Christmas with her cousin from America was blighted when they went skating on thin ice and Rosalyn nearly died. Somehow, instead of being praised for raising the alarm, Catherine gets blamed. Sean Madigan grew up on a farm in Ireland. Learning to swim in the Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but it also incurred his father's wrath. He flees to England, but his heart belongs to the Shannon and her pulling power is ever near? Unlike the other three, Naomi Seddon didn't fear the sea. She'd been orphaned and placed in a children's home in Sheffield and cruelly abused. The sea offered her a way out and she revelled in its...

Barefoot, I pick my way across the rough floorboards to where a drawer lined with a quilt serves as a crib. Kneeling as if at chapel, I gaze down at my babe in her makeshift manger. I must not touch her. When I look I must not touch. When I touch I must not look. In this way Mam says no bond will form.Having fallen pregnant to a German POW, a young woman gives up her child for adoption. Years later, after a loveless childhood, her daughter will finally discover the secrets of her birth.