¿Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other¿s hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.¿

Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt¿s life is a glorious hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, `full of cold dislike,¿ tears at Harriet¿s breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness and a strange defiance she has never known before, Harriet is deeply afraid of what, exactly, she has brought into the world¿