On a stark and cold January day, Philip Stavely, successful actor, screenwriter and family man, is killed during a shooting party, leaving behind his wife, Ellie, and three children aged between nine and twenty-one. Although the inquest brings in a verdict of accidental death, Ellie is convinced it was suicide and feels driven to discover the cause. Their once happy marriage had deteriorated in recent years for reasons she was unable to fathom and, although she had begun in recent years to suspect an affair, only their eldest daughter, Cassandra, had stumbled on the truth.

Still living in the lovely old country house where they had made their home, Ellie struggles to come to terms with the tragedy and, almost imperceptibly, finds herself becoming involved with her husband's elder brother, a gentle man who for years had secretly loved her. As she and the children try to rebuild their lives in their own varying ways, so individual traumas came to a head, and it is not until Ellie learns the truth about Philip that she is able to lay the ghosts of the past to rest, and decide on a new and happier future.