A short break in a shoreline cottage is an ideal place to struggle with your demons. For Elly and Martin it is the chance to forget their hasty exit from Paradise following scandal. But Elly makes a life-changing find on the tideline. It is a huge pink diamond ring, finger bones still attached. Scroll back a few months and at Martin's place of work - a Chester hospital - we meet new nurse Hayley. Twenty-five; gorgeous (even by her own admission); she is a player, and totally turned off by the ward surgeon, Richard Congreve. Until, that is, she catches a whiff of something expensive in his Jag and is ensnared by a gift so desirable it may prove fatal. As we begin to question who the ring and its finger belong to, the cottage collects the secrets of those friends and strangers who have stayed there. Why has Elly such power over them all? Ranging between Wales, the north of England and Goa, this is a novel about possession, betrayal, violence - and just how much we can afford to lose. JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE FOR FICTION NOMINEE