Mara O'Shaughnessy, eighth of thirteen children, longs to escape from the crowded tumult of her family. Her sister Caitlin, quiet but determined, is already involved with the suffragettes. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Woodall lives at Woodall Park with her parents in a world of servanted ease, country pursuits and suitable marriages. Yet in the golden years before World War I, Liverpool Irish and English gentry are to become fatefully, passionately entangled.