Shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year 2020 Shortlisted for the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards - FICTION Longlisted for the 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize 2019 Canberra Critics Circle Award - FICTION 'a beautiful, tender, captivating story' - Joanna Nell, author of The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village 'It is a tender, liberating love story, but, as Featherstone originally intended, a provoking one about our definitions of masculinity, bravery and courage.' - Canberra Times 'a novel about intimacy and devotion, the power of tenderness, the mysteries of time, presence, and absence, secrets revealed and withheld, and friendships between strangers emerging from dire circumstances' - Australian Book Review There is nothing more important than love and refuge. Egypt, 1941. Only hours after disembarking in Alexandria, William Marsh, an Australian lieutenant at twenty-one, is face down in the sand, caught in a stoush with the Italian enemy. He is saved by James Kelly, a childhood friend from Sydney and the last person he expected to see. But where William escapes unharmed, not all are so fortunate. William is sent to supervise an army depot in the Western Desert, with a private directive to find an AWOL soldier: James Kelly. When the two are reunited, James is recovering from an accident, hidden away in the home of an unusual family - a family with secrets. Together they will risk it all to find answers. Soon William and James are thrust headlong into territory more dangerous than either could have imagined. 'A beautifully written, tender and sensitive love story told within the tense and uncertain context of war.' - Karen Viggers, bestselling author of The Lightkeeper's Wife 'This is a strangely gentle novel about wartime conflict, violence, and chaos.' - Sydney Morning Herald