Shortlisted for: 2011 Costa Novel Award

While Riley Purefoy and Peter Locke fight for their country, their survival and their sanity in the trenches of Flanders, Nadine Waveney, Julia Locke and Rose Locke do what they can at home.

Each day, beautiful, obsessive Julia goes through rituals to prepare for her beloved husband Peter’s ever-imminent return. Riley and Nadine, only eighteen when the war started, and with problems of their own already, want above all to make promises – but how can they, when the future is not in their hands? And Rose?

Well, what did happen to the traditionally brought-up women who lost all hope of marriage, because all the young men were dead?