Tabitha has had a hard time of it.  She had a mental breakdown when she was a teenager, she's recently found out her husband has been cheating on her, he's making her out to be an unsuitable mother and her son has decided to stay in the settled life he has rather than move with her to her childhood.

However, on moving back to the old renovated church she can't says she blames Albie for not moving.  It's cold, it's bleak and it's bring back far too many bad memories.  Then her cousin is murdered, she gets an unplanned inheritance and more people around her die.

Tabitha has to rely on tentative new relationships with some locals to try and investigate what has been going on in Hisketh in her long absence.  But some long held family secrets and resentments are about to bubble up to the surface and Tabitha may struggle to come to terms with them.

This story really does have a twisty story arc and the psychological trauma of Tabitha is a major part of that. Tabitha is a completely unreliable narrator as due to her mental health issues we're never quite sure if the information being presented by her is "real and factual" or just her grasp of things.  

I really began to feel sorry for Tabitha early on as she really has had a crappy life and hopefully now that things are in the open, she will struggle less.  Albie, her son, seems to have lightened her load slightly with his visit and Gordo and Barrett have become fast new friends for her.