Skye, the American daughter of Primmy Tremayne, fascinated by the family's romantic history, takes a years sabbatical to travel to Cornwall to meet her grandmother, Morwen Tremayne. Drawn into the lives of her new relatives, and the world of Killigrew Clay, Skye begins to peice together the past, but the imminence of the Great war brings new fears for the future. Then a young American soldier called Lewis Pascoe arrives in Cornwall looking for distant relatives -- but the shock of his appearance is too much for Morwen...