There is a dark secret haunting the Sharpe family. They are strange and remote, and when Stephanie Topham is told she must work with Nicola Sharpe in a science project at school, she is horrified. As part of their project, they have to make a pinhole camera. But when they take a photo with the camera, there is a ghost-like figure in their picture. This figure becomes a key to opening up Nicola Sharpe and revealing the secrets of her family.

Through a series of appearances in various photos, the ghost directs Nicola and Stephanie into a past that is full of revelations, twists and surprises. Some are painful, some tear at the fabric of the Sharpe family, and in pursuit of them Stephanie’s own family life is turned upside down. But the unravelling of Nicola’s past is the saving of the Sharpes, and in a final twist, it gives Nicola something so amazing that, even in her deepest dreams, she has never dared contemplate.