1880s London. Cora Wexford is alone at thirty-eight, with secrets that drove her to flee life in America and come to London. Now, she makes a living by painting the dead. On the evening of her birthday, she is introduced through friends to a charming stranger named Miles Vale. As Cora falls deeper into trust and surrender with Miles, she's given an opportunity to catapult her career. A suffragist and esteemed gallery owner commission Cora to create a series of portraits featuring ordinary women whose recent deaths have been caused or enabled by a system that ignores them. Then a killer in Whitechapel begins murdering women in the same gruesome way.

As Cora works tirelessly to honor the victims of this “Jack the Ripper,” she finds herself increasingly disoriented within her own relationship. Her unraveling leads to one question: will anyone notice a woman being dismantled over time by someone sharing her bed?

This book contains scenes depicting domestic abuse and sexual assault and mentions of the death of a child.