Subtitle from cover.

Sisters Natalie and Alice Kessler were close until adolescence wrenched them apart. Natalie is headstrong, manipulative and beautiful. Alice is a dreamer who loves books and birds. During their family's summer holiday at the lake, Alice falls under the thrall of a struggling young painter, Thomas Bayber, in whom she finds a kindred spirit. Natalie, however, remains strangely unmoved, sitting for a family portrait with surprising indifference. But by the end of the summer, three lives are shattered.