Cadence Sinclair Eastman is the eldest grandchild of the wealthy family patriarch Harris Sinclair. Harris has three daughters (Cadence's mother, Penny, and her aunts Carrie and Bess) and owns an island near
Martha's Vineyard called Beechwood Island, where the Sinclairs spend their summers. The island is organized as a de facto private state, with four independent mansions — Windemere (N), Cuddledown (NE), Red Gate (E) and Clairmont (W) — with private tennis courts, beaches and docks. During summers, Penny and Cadence usually reside at Windemere; Bess, Mirren and her two sisters and brother live at Cuddledown; Carrie, Johnny and his brother reside at Red Gate, hosting Gat — the nephew of Carrie's partner, Ed; and Clairmont is occupied by the family patriarch Harris and his wife, Tipper. The Sinclair family is also known as the “Royals of America” for their wealth and high-end lifestyle. Cadence, her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and their best friend Gat Patil are all of the same age and collectively known by the family as "The Liars." The summer Cadence is 14 (which she refers to as Summer 14), Gat and Cadence fall in love and begin a relationship. During Summer 15, Cadence suffers a serious head injury, only recalling that she struck her head in the water. She loses most of her memories of that summer, but she knows bits and pieces of it. She also starts to overthink and begins to have
migraines. She subsequently becomes addicted to
Percocet and is forced to repeat a year at school. Whenever she tries to reach out to Johnny and Mirren, she is ignored. Rather than allowing her to go to the island for Summer 16, Penny forces Cadence to go on a tour of
Europe with her father (who Cadence is no longer close to after he had an affair and abandoned the family). Cadence is allowed to go back to Beechwood for Summer 17 and is surprised to see that her once controlling grandfather now has
dementia and his beautiful colonial mansion, Clairmont, has been replaced by New Clairmont — a cold, modern architectural monstrosity that has none of the charms of the previous Clairmont. The other Liars act strangely around Cadence and refuse to talk about what happened in Summer 15, saying that Penny has advised that Cadence needs to figure it out by herself. They reject the idea of spending time at New Clairmont and instead camp out at Cuddledown. Cadence and Gat slowly rekindle their previous relationship. Cadence begins to recall events from Summer 15. She recalls that after her grandmother Tipper had died between Summers 14 and 15, her mother and aunts began to bicker over their inheritances. They all tried to use their children to gain Harris's favor; however, none of the sisters had been able to earn a living independently despite a top education and access to a trust fund, which annoyed him and threatened their inheritances. Carrie had also rejected a marriage proposal from Ed despite living together for almost nine years, because Harris was opposed to her marrying a man of
Indian descent and she was worried she'd be cut off from his will testament. Gat was angry because this meant that Summer 15 would be his last summer on the island: if Carrie stayed with Ed, she'd be cut off from the family, and if she left Ed, then Gat would no longer be related to the family. Cadence eventually recalls that in an attempt to stop the disputes, she convinced the rest of the Liars to burn down Clairmont to get the family to stop feuding, because the Liars saw Clairmont as the symbol of everything wrong with their family. This is why New Clairmont was built. She is delighted with the idea that she kept the family together until she recalls that the Liars forgot to release her grandfather's dogs, killing them in the fire. When she goes to Gat for comfort, he reluctantly asks if that was the only thing she remembered. Cadence later realizes that her act of
arson killed Johnny, Mirren and Gat because she had prematurely set fire to the ground floor, trapping Johnny and Mirren on higher floors and Gat in the basement, which prevented their escape as the house burned down. She goes to visit the Liars at Cuddledown where, in her addled mind, they tell her that their deaths were not her fault (as they share responsibility for the
criminal conspiracy to destroy her grandfather’s mansion) and reveal that they will no longer be able to appear to her, with Gat giving her a final kiss and the three of them diving into the ocean and disappearing. It is revealed that Carrie and Ed are still together, and Cadence will not confess to being criminally responsible for leading the conspiracy, igniting the multimillion-dollar arson, nor committing three
homicides. ==Characters==