When bestselling crime writer Mike Noonan's wife dies, he suffers from writer's block. Until he is drawn from Derry to his lakeside retreat, Sara Laughs, a house once inhabited by a famous singer. It's a community run by rich, tyrannical, wheelchair-bound Devore and his terrifying, skeletal, female bookkeeper. Devore is hell-bent on getting custody of his grandchild. Three-year-old Kyra and her young mother, Mattie, turn to Mike for help, and Mike, besotted by Mattie, is powerless to resist. But there are others at Sara Laughs determined to prevent Mike's success and Kyra can feel them too.