1943. Wartime England. Married to a Guardsman at the age of eighteen after a whirlwind courtship, Helen Woodley believed her future was assured – only to be widowed before she was forty. Though she put on a brave face, Helen could no more reconcile herself to Adam’s death than she could accept the hemmed-in, incestuous life of the Army and all its intrigues and affairs.
And now Helen is faced with an unwelcome sense of déjà vu. For her impulsive, free-spirited daughter Ruth, eighteen years old herself, has fallen madly in love with a soldier about to be posted to Northern Ireland, a man whom she’s desperately anxious to marry. Can Helen prevent history from repeating itself?