England 1944. For more than two years, Rachel Lock has waited for her husband to return from the battlefields of Italy. When at last he arrives, she is devastated to find he is a different man, a man she cannot love. Disabled and embittered, Danny can never resume a normal life, and though Rachel is determined to restore their marriage, it seems the war has broken their lives beyond repair. Then Captain Andrews comes to visit, and despite a deep unease between Danny and his former commander, for Rachel the attraction is instant, her heart captured by the officer. But the tension between the two men seems to stem from an earlier time. What happened in Italy to make Danny so hostile to an officer he once trusted and admired? And why has Andrews come to visit him in the face of it? As Rachel struggles to shake off the ghosts of the war, she is torn between her loyalties to an empty marriage and her deepest desires. Only one can prevail in this heart-wrenching novel, which delves into the devastation left behind by the Second World War.