Publisher's Synopsis
Christmas 1922. Sydney is waking from the nightmare of the Great War, and rekindled hope brings a burst of new energy to the city. Dotty Bluebrook does not share the shift in mood. Drifting through her rich-girl routine of shopping and social engagements, she is secretly mourning the loss of a forbidden lover who went off to fight and never returned. He's been missing in action for four long years - and she's losing her mind. Clarinda Littlemore is grieving losses of a more concrete kind. Her father and brothers are dead - leaving her and her mother in poverty. Taking a job in the Ladies' Rest and Writing Room of an elegant department store, Clarinda is craving a life beyond filling inkpots and replenishing stationery supplies. One hot summer morning, when Dotty sweeps into the rose-pink haven of the writing room to pen a letter to her non-existent man, Clarinda watches her.
