Never the Face describes a sadomasochistic relationship between a man, David, and the book's narrator, a woman identified only as "Kitten" or "Bitch".
In the novel, David trains Kitten to be the submissive partner in a sexual relationship that includes bondage, orgasm control and beating her with a variety of implements.
To date the chief clues to Sands' identity are in an interview she gave to Claire Messud for Guernica magazine.
[1] In her interview with Messud, Sands says that she chose a pseudonym to avoid "genre confusion" with her non-fiction writing, and so that the text "would be taken on its own terms", rather than influenced by what readers already knew about the author.
Books that Sands mentions as influencing hers include Story of O, Venus in Furs, Moby-Dick, The Man of Feeling, and The Emigrants.