Twenty-seven year old journalist Katie O'Connell seems to be living the perfect life with new husband, Rhode Island Man of the Year. She has it all: a whaling captain's mansion, a job she enjoys and a sailing yacht. Jeff O'Connell, a charismatic business leader, has swept her off her feet and whisked her from California to Rhode Island and a speedy wedding. The marriage is her dream come true until one month after their wedding, to her astonishment, Jeff brings his four children from his first marriage home to live with them. Running contrary to his often stated feminist views, Jeff's expectation that she quit her writer/columnist job at a newspaper to look after them and his rigid control of their finances, stuns Katie. Soon she suspects that her rush to the altar was part of a duplicitous plan to have a mother figure ready and waiting for the previously planned secret arrival of his children. Meanwhile, behind the walls of their historic home, Jeff, a Dr. Jekyl hero to the outside world becomes a Mr. Hyde at home swaying easily from charming lover to raging autocrat. He explodes regularly, throwing objects across rooms, pushing his fist through walls, and attacking and injuring Katie when she opposes him. What follows is a struggle to free herself from Jeff that ultimately drags Katie into his world of deceit, adultery and danger.