It is the summer of 1921 and eight - year - old Lucy Gault stays close to the glens and woods above Lahardane - the much - loved house that her family is being forced to abandon. She knows that danger threatens and the Gaults are no longer welcome in Ireland. Lucy, however, is headstrong and decides that somehow she must force her parents into staying. But the path she chooses ends in disaster. One chance event, unwanted and unexpected, will blight the lives of the Gaults for years to come and bind each of them in different ways to this one moment in time, to this beautiful stretch of coast . . .