Inside the convent, the nun peered at the paper. Her eyes were old, but she could still see… Ruby O'Hagan she read. Well, at least the child had a name, even if the poor wee mite had nothing else.

The product of an affair between a nurse and an injured American soldier during the Great War, Ruby O'Hagan’s early life is in a convent orphanage. At sixteen she runs away with a farmworker and two years later she is alone and homeless with two daughters. Her friend, Mrs Hart, leaves her big house for Ruby to look after and it is here that her life unfolds. Her children leave but return when tragedy strikes. Through all this the enigmatic Matthew Flynn drifts in and out of Ruby’s life, and she ignores him until it is almost too late.