Regine, a psychologically fragile young woman, is hiding away in the city, far from the dark and forbidding countryside of her traumatic childhood  She s struggling to construct the loving family she never had, and to rise above the events of the past: above all, the disastrous home birth of her brother Isaac, which led to her mother s insanity and Isaac s apparent death  But the city is tense and hostile, and contains its own threats  An abusive relationship with the controlling psychiatrist who s treating her mother is already blighting Regine s life when the brutal murder of her grandmother raises a crucial question: is Isaac still alive, and looking for revenge against a family which he feels has rejected him  Driven to heal the wounds of the past and to reunite her family by connecting with the brother she s never met, Regine must return to the site of her previous traumas and confront the true source of her family s guilt  It could make sense of her life - or throw it into