On Candle Island there's always a storm brewing. Gwen McPhail moves to the island, ready for a life change ... but is she ready for murder? When her ne'er-do-well nephew, Nate, is accused of scuttling a lobster boat to kill his boss, the captain, so he can shack up with the merry widow, Gwen gets into tiger-aunt mode. With no body and no boat, and Nate in the hospital from exposure, there's no evidence to go on. But Gwen's a digger. She discovers a marriage on the rocks, a conniving wife, a jealous best friend, and a little girl and her grandmother suffocating in the scuffle. The trouble is, Gwen's an outsider fresh from the mainland, and the hostile Candle Island clan protect their own. Gwen's no stranger to her own brand of family loyalty. To clear her nephew, she'll risk shipwreck, alienate her one true island friend, and ally with a woman who scares the pants off her. In her quest for justice, Gwen unearths the bitter truth that good gals sometimes get caught in the rip tide of manipulation perpetrated by one of their own-in this case, a selfish shallow wife and a turncoat friend. True to her heart, Gwen stands by the grandmother guilty of manslaughter, her heartbroken granddaughter, and a plan to bring down the ones responsible for the tragedy.