London, 1765

Lady Isabella Gerard, a respectable member of Georgian society, orders her maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it. Its shimmering beauty has been tainted by the actions of her brutal husband the night before. Three months later, Lord Eustace Gerard stands at the shoreline of the lake, looking down at a woman wearing the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it's clear this is not his intended victim...

250 Years Later

When a gown she stole from a historic home as a child is mysteriously returned to Fenella Brightwell, it begins to possess her in exactly the same way that it did as a girl. The fragile new life Fen has created for herself away from her abusive ex-husband is threatened at its foundations by the gown's power over her until she can't tell what is real and what is imaginary.

As Fen starts to discover more about the gown and Isabella's story, so she begins to see the parallels with her own life. With each piece of history revealed, the gown-and its past-seems to possess her more and more, culminating in a dramatic revelation set to destroy her sanity.