For Innis and Biddy, daughters of the embittered Vassie Campbell, life has changed greatly from the days when they were poor tenant farmers. Innis, the mother of three young children, has found that marriage to handsome Michael Tarrant is utterly different from the idyll she expected. And Biddy has become only too accustomed to being a wealthy widow who keeps herself aloof from both the life she once knew and her dead husband's family.
But though the sisters' lives seem set, they are destined to change once more. For Innis, a temptation to a better life may have come too late--and for Biddy, courted by an ardent new suitor, happiness may have come at last.
Set against the background of an island that is being forced half-willingly into a new era, the story of the two different sisters and their very different longings is one of the most memorable Jessica Stirling stories yet.