Donna Weaver has put everything into The Breakers. Now it waits - freshly painted, richly furnished, filled with flowers - for the first guests to arrive.
But as they roll up - these couples and cousins, all in their forties - each one discovers they've been here before. Sasha had his sixteenth birthday at scruffy old Knockbreak House, as it was. Peach started a life of boozing there. Rosalie and Paul started the life they still share. Buck and Jennifer had one night they barely remember. They're the lucky ones.
Because the party that started with peach schnapps and Postman's Knock ended with a girl walking into the sea.
Sasha's parents hustled the children out of the spotlight. And as for the kids themselves? They made a vow of silence - "lock it in a box, stitch my lips and go to my grave".
But one of them has broken the pact. Someone is playing games, locking boxes, stitching lips. And before the weekend is over, at least one of them will go to their grave.
'McPherson is a terrific story teller' Ann Cleeves