A gripping saga of love, loss and hope in wartime as we follow the fortunes of the Kilmaster family through the dramatic years of World War I and its aftermath. The Great War is at its height, and while RSM Probyn Kilmaster is in France, training raw recruits to send to the trenches, in the Yorkshire pit village of Denaby Main his wife, Grace, contends with the hardships of bringing up their children alone. But when Probyn returns safely home at last and it seems life can begin anew, tragedy strikes the Kilmasters, and for Probyn's daughters: Augusta, Maddie, Mims, and especially the sensitive Beata, their father's well-meaning attempt to keep the family together by giving them a stepmother proves more than they can bear - and each has to find her own way to escape the cruelty and oppression that has unwittingly been visited upon them.