Joanna Flynn was lucky to be alive. Twice in a matter of minutes she almost died on a patch of oil-slicked highway. But when the doctors told her that she would suffer no lasting effects, they were wrong. For that night the dream began....

It was only of a house perched high above the sea, of a ticking clock and the lingering scent of roses. Yet night after night it awoke Joanna with a sense of panic. Its terror lingered throughout her days, urging her to do something - but what? Then two strangers on the street called her Caroline, and Joanna knew she had to find an explanation for what was happening, or she'd lose her mind.

What she finally uncovered was an obituary for a woman named Caroline McKenna - a woman who looked enough like her to be her twin, a woman who was killed in a car accident on the same day Joanna should have perished. Now her torturous nightmares and a tenuous connection have brought Joanna three thousand miles across country to the town where Caroline lived - and died. Almost everyone has stories to tell about Cliffside's leading lady, and yet no one seems to have known her. Was she the shy wife or the seductress of men? The devoted mother or the selfish beauty?

Too soon Joanna realizes that it's not her sanity at stake, but her life. For unraveling the mystery of Caroline means uncovering the secrets in this picturesque town, secrets someone may have killed to hide. And that someone appears all to willing to kill again.