Carolyn, the child of an Irish Baron and housemaid discovers she was abandoned to a couple on a baby farm in Scotland. She loved her foster parents deeply, but they were killed in an accident, and she is scooped away from the farm by a rich and very strict Calvinist aunt.
Carolyn suffers additional tragedies despite being blessed with a good education and wealth. She becomes captivated by a good looking young man who turns out to be a ruthless stalker and rapist. Surprisingly, it is her aunt who understands her pain and helps her survive. Still she is left with a hole in her heart. Her life of heartbreak and desire is never quenched until she has a baby of her own.
When Carolyn and her husband die at sea during a tumultuous storm, their child Nora, miraculously survives, and ends up on the barrier spit of Sandy Hook where she grows up in the lighthouse with strangers during the depression.
Sandy Hook, New Jersey is called a barrier spit. It looks like a little finger that sticks up out of the State into the New York Bay just south of New York City. It is located on the northeast side of New Jersey. It is approximately six miles long and its width varies between one-tenth of a mile, and one mile wide, and ends in Middletown Township in Monmouth County. The name comes from the Dutch who called the area "Sant Hoek", meaning "spit of land."
The Sandy Hook Lighthouse---originally the New York Lighthouse---was commissioned by George Washington and is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States. Many of the records of the lighthouse keepers are missing between 1923 and 1962. This lighthouse seemed to conjure up many stories over the years. Its endless association with legends and obscurities includes a mysterious sea and abandoned human bones.