FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL 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 LivelyViolet is 38.The First World War took everything from her.

Her brother, her fiance - 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...