It is the summer of 1928 and the Tregaran estate, a once proud house surrounded by green clipped lawns and a rhododendron lined drive, is slipping into gentle decay. Jocelyn Tregaran is about to celebrate her tenth birthday with all the shabby splendour of faded gentility when she encounters young Philip Tregarn - a poor relation whose future becomes inextricably bound with her own. After their fateful first meeting, the children grow to maturity nurturing a fierce love and a dark passion for each other. And they learn of their families' tortuous history - of the lust and revenge of their forebears - whose sins are visited upon them.