1916. East London. When sixteen-year-old Clover Cooper’s mother, Iris, calls her home from work one day, the last thing Clover expects is to find that her mother has given birth to another baby. After all, Clover’s unpleasant father, Sidney, has been in France for longer than nine months. Banned from questions, and bound to secrecy by her beloved mother, Clover leaves her infant brother at a nunnery for safekeeping, despite her heartbreak at parting with him. But when Sidney unexpectedly returns from the Western Front, life at home suddenly feels more dangerous than a battlefield. Strained by keeping such a secret, Clover turns to her fiercely protective grandmother, Elsie, for advice. But Elsie has her own life-changing decision to make. Then tragedy strikes, and Clover will have to find a way to keep her family together and safeguard all that she holds dear.
