Sophie Farrier -- a bright and imaginative teen girl -- was born with rotten luck. Misfortune has placed her in Seaside, a dull and dreary village filled with dull and dreary people. It is a place where creativity is frowned upon, outsiders are shunned, and no one dares to stand out. Those who actually muster up the courage to leave are never heard from again.

After a terrible storm, the sea casts ashore a mysterious, unconscious man who bears the gifts of magic. Seaside is thrown into an uproar, and in the resulting chaos, Sophie gets a glimpse of the dread secrets buried at home. Now she must set out on a journey to learn more about her family, her world, and herself.

Yet the road out of Seaside is fraught with peril. There is a keeper of secrets lying in Sophie's path, one whose ruined past is entwined wither her own. A master of deception, he seeks to destroy her very sense of self using the cruelest weapon of all -- the truth.