In 1944 Emily Dean is dispatched from Melbourne to stay with her fatherβs relatives in rural Victoria. At the family property of Mount Prospect, Grandmother is determined to keep up standards despite the war, while Emilyβs young aunt β the beautiful, fearless Lydia β refuses to befriend her. Feeling lonely and isolated, Emily canβt wait to go home. But things start to improve when she encounters Claudio, the Italian prisoner of war employed as a farm labourer. And become more interesting still when her uncle William returns home wounded. Heβs rude, traumatised and mostly drunk, yet a passion for literature soon draws them together.