An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here A brief encounter changes two lives forever in an enthralling novel of love, loss and longing. England 1944. In the shadow of the war raging in Europe, Tom and Anna meet by chance. He is an American pilot on a 72-hour pass and she is a secretary, trapped in a life going nowhere. Surprised by each other, they begin a passionate affair. Their happiness does not last. Shot down over Europe, wounded and in hiding, Tom has no way of telling Anna he is alive. And Anna, left waiting in England, has no way of finding out. How can she know that Tom is struggling to return to her? Or that the thought of her is all that keeps him going on the long journey home? In a world where promises are hard to keep, all she can do is hope. Until she discovers her mother is keeping secrets, and then it is a race against time.

England 1944. When soldier Danny Lock returns at last to England from the battlefields of Europe, it is not the joyful homecoming he dreamt of all those nights in Italy. Disabled and embittered, he knows he can never have a normal life, while his young wife Rachel, determined to revive their marriage, struggles to understand the man her husband has become. Then Captain Andrews comes to visit. His attraction to Rachel is instant, 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 all three strive to shake off the ghosts of the war, they must each face their own searching questions about the nature of love and loyalty in this moving and intimate novel, which explores the lives of a small group of people caught in the devastating legacy of the Second World War.