The village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet, sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface, tensions simmer, hearts ache, and painful truths threaten to emerge. Sixteen-year-old Catrin Bone knows only what she has been told. Now, she is beginning to question her small world, and a version of the past that seems to entrap and embitter her reclusive mother, Mary. Mary had a sister once, a girl of unparalleled beauty. Why did she disappear from the village in a shroud of shame all those years ago - and where is she now? Meanwhile the Clements brothers, skint and all out of hope, run rampant across the hills and lanes. And old Dai Bevel, whose frailty masks a dark history, dreams of a girl he used to know... The sins of the past are approaching, for it takes a village: to raise a child, to bring down a woman, to hide something monstrous and to look the other way.