How much harm can you cause while meaning well? In 1933 Lotte has left poverty behind. She has a fine house in the best street and a tentative position in Stirling society for her young family. But she cannot stop walking away, or towards, something else. She walks, with ghosts, and guilt, a path that ultimately leads to the grey, stony asylum.

In 1933, Lotte has left behind the poverty of her childhood. She has a fine house in the best street and a tentative position in Stirling society for her young family. But when her children are asleep, Lotte ceaselessly walks the town's streets and rural paths, winding further away from home each night, driven by guilt and ghosts she cannot forget. Lotte can't outrun the long shadow of her mind, and her small town cannot explain the erratic wandering woman in their midst, placing her in an asylum, never to be heard from again.

A century later, a chance remark leads her grandson on a path to uncovering Lotte's fate, delving into knots of family secrets, unravelling the stories silenced by small-town propriety. Family myths and notes from the asylum collide in this moving, immersive debut novel, giving a voice to lost lives, a glimpse of solidarity between generations.