FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OFGIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

‘Bittersweet … dazzling’Guardian

‘Deeply pleasurable … the ending made me cry’The Times

‘Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity’ Penelope Lively

Violet is 38.

The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiancé – and her future. She is now considered a ‘surplus woman’.

But Violet is also fiercely independent and determined. Escaping her suffocating mother, she moves to Winchester to start a new life –a change that will require courage, resilience and acts of quiet rebellion. And when whispers of another world war surface, she must live with a secret that could change everything…