Publisher's Synopsis
In 1944 Emily Dean is dispatched from Melbourne to stay with her fatherâ_Ts relatives in rural Victoria. At the family property of Mount Prospect, Grandmother is determined to keep up standards despite the war, while Emilyâ_Ts young aunt â_" the beautiful, fearless Lydia â_" refuses to befriend her. Feeling lonely and isolated, Emily canâ_Tt 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. Heâ_Ts rude, traumatised and mostly drunk, yet a passion for literature soon draws them together.
