The House Beyond the Dunes

Lane McCord wakes in a hospital after a near-fatal fall at a beach cottage in North Carolina. Her boyfriend, Kyle, died in the same accident, during what was meant to be their first romantic getaway together. Lane's only memory is of lying at the foot of the stairs, with Kyle's blood pooling around her.

Grieving and confused, she decides to go back to the cottage, pack up her belongings and leave for good. A winter rainstorm strands her there before she can go. She is vulnerable, and she is not alone.

A neighbor appears out of the storm and says he heard a violent argument before the fall. A detective arrives too, searching for a missing woman. That woman's diary adds to the mystery and gives Lane new reasons to be afraid.

This is psychological suspense built around a gap in the heroine's memory. Lane has to ask how well she knew Kyle and how well she knows herself, and whether the fall was an accident at all. The tension rises in a confined setting, with a storm closing off the way out and nobody she can safely trust.