Seventeen and pregnant, Felicia travels from Ireland to England in search of her lover and is found instead by Joseph Ambrose Hilditch, a helpful catering manager whose kindness masks a serial killer. Hilditch has murdered several young women, but he has no conscious awareness of his crimes; like Felicia, he doesn't see his true self. A story of innocence lost and regained, Felicia awakens to the world's dangers and duplicities; and Hilditch, who grew up lonely and unloved, comes to realize what was taken from him, and what he himself has taken.