On a hot July afternoon, a worker at an Antietam Creek construction site drives the blade of his backhoe into a layer of soil - and strikes a 5,000-year-old human skull. The discovery draws plenty of attention and a lot of controversy. It also changes the life of one woman in ways she never expected.

Eve Benedict is the kind of subject who could make any biographer’s career. Last of the movie goddesses, she has two Oscars, four ex-husbands, and a legion of lovers, both famous and infamous. Now she is ready to write a tell-all memoir that has even Hollywood’s richest and most powerful worried. Julia Summers never dreamed of being chosen to tell Eve’s story. 

Tory Bodeen grew up in a run-down house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt - and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. Her one escape was her neighbor Hope, who lived in the big house just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn’t allowed to be at home: a child. Then Hope was brutally murdered, and everything fell apart. 

Enjoying the view from the mountain she has just climbed, Reece Gilmore sees a woman being attacked. But when authorities comb the area, they find nothing - no signs of struggle. No freshly turned earth. Not even a tire track. No one in town seems to believe Reece, except Brody, a gruff loner.

Photographer Jo Ellen Hathaway thought she'd escaped the house called Sanctuary long ago. She'd spent her loneliest years there, after the sudden, unexplained disappearance of her mother. Yet the sprawling inn on an island off the Georgia coast continues to haunt her dreams. And now, even more haunting are the pictures someone is sending her: strange close-ups and candids, culminating in the most shocking portrait of all - a photo of her mother - naked, beautiful, and dead. 

Reena Hale’s destiny was shaped in the destructive - yet fascinatingly beautiful - fire that leveled her family’s pizzeria when she was young. Now an arson investigator, she finds her strength and wits constantly tested, although sometimes the job seems like a snap compared to her love life. But she can’t always blame the men. After all, a soot-caked woman barking orders and smelling of smoke isn’t the biggest turn-on in the world. Then she meets Bo Goodnight, who seems different. 

Police Lieutenant Phoebe MacNamara found her calling at an early age, when a violently unstable man broke into her family's home, trapping and terrorizing them for hours. Now she's Savannah's top hostage negotiator, who puts her life on the line every day to defuse powder-keg situations.

Olivia’s parents were among Hollywood’s golden couples - until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. A monster with the face of her father... Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror - but her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story. Now, assisted by Noah Brady, the son of the police detective who found her cowering in her closet so many years before, she may have her chance. 

A summer at his grandparents' South Dakota ranch is not 11-year-old Cooper Sullivan's idea of a good time. But things are a bit more bearable now that he's discovered the neighbor girl, Lil Chance, and her homemade batting cage. Even horseback riding isn't as awful as Coop thought it would be. Each year, with Coop's annual summer visit, their friendship deepens from innocent games to stolen kisses, but there is one shared experience that will forever haunt them: the terrifying discovery of a hiker's body.

As a Baltimore cop, Nate Burke watched his partner die on the street - and the guilt still haunts him. With nowhere else to go, he accepted the job as Chief of Police in a tiny, remote Alaskan town with the hopes of starting over.

Shelby Foxworth lost her husband. Then she lost her illusions.... The man who took her from Tennessee to an exclusive Philadelphia suburb left her in crippling debt. He was an adulterer and a liar, and when Shelby tracks down his safe-deposit box, she finds multiple IDs. The man she loved wasn’t just dead. He never really existed. Shelby takes her three-year-old daughter and heads south to seek comfort in her hometown, where she meets someone new: Griff Lott, a successful contractor.

Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes. Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. 

To most people, Fiona Bristow seems to have an idyllic life - a quaint house on an island off Seattle’s coast, a thriving dog-training school and a challenging volunteer job performing Canine Search and Rescue. But Fiona got to this point by surviving a nightmare: an encounter with the Red Scarf Killer, who shot and killed Fiona’s cop fiancé and his K-9 partner.

A champion boat racer, Cameron Quinn traveled the world spending his winnings on champagne and women. But when his dying father calls him home to care for Seth, a troubled young boy not unlike Cameron once was, his life changes overnight.

From the outside, the house in Lakeview Terrace looks perfect, and the Bigelows seem like the perfect family: the respected surgeon father, the glamorous, devoted mother and two beautiful children. A perfect family, in a perfect house, living their perfect lives. But perfect surfaces can hide dark undercurrents, and behind closed doors lies a very different story. Teenager Zane and his younger sister, Britt, are terrorised by their violent father and dysfunctional mother.