‘Evie?’ Hester breathed, incredulously, the torch beam wavering. Then, louder, ‘What you doin’ back ’ere?’ The girl was bruised. Her clothes filthy, her hair tangled, her face tear-stained. Barely recognisable, but Evie. Definitely Evie.

It is mid-December 1944 when eighteen-year-old Evie arrives at Post Stone Farm: the raw, winter cold and wartime rationing casts a shadow on the small community, but none as dark as her past.

Choosing to join the Land Army, she longs for quiet days spent milking cows and collecting eggs. The other land girls have already formed close friendships, and quiet Evie barely makes a ripple when trying to blend into the group. But it is here she falls in love with Giorgio, an Italian POW. But all this changes one June evening when Corporal Norman Clark arrives at the farm and a startling revelation thrusts Evie into the spotlight – whether she wants it to or not. As the full history of her tragic life becomes known to the valley people, many of them become deeply and in some cases, violently, involved in overcoming the obstacles which lie between Evie and the happiness and the enduring love she deserves.