When Lucy Tremain goes to stay with her grandparents in their house in Cornwall overlooking the sea, she finds family papers hidden in the old cottage. The papers hint at wartime secrets. From them emerges her grandmother's story, a hidden story of wartime courage and terrible deprivation. And for three generations of the Tremain family, the secrets turn their lives upside down: her grandfather Fred, the country doctor who married Martha; Anna, the difficult, determined older child who is Lucy's mother; and Barnaby, her benevolent, indulgent uncle.
