Egypt, 1900. Kate Whitaker is fourteen years old when she first meets Adam Ellis on her archaeologist father's dig. They hate each other on sight. Seven years later, they meet again in London, and this time Kate falls in love with him, only to discover he is more interested in his older, more sophisticated cousin Alice. When Adam returns in Egypt to discuss funding for her father's new excavations, Kate resolves to have as little to do with him as possible. But illness and malicious rumours threaten to sabotage the dig, and Kate has no choice but to work with Adam. Can she trust him, or is he still under the spell of his lovely, haunted cousin...?