A late summer, 1939. England and France.
Lisa Newman's photographic memory and linguistic skills make her no ordinary girl. On leaving school she goes to France to teach English to the Dubois children, and finds a home from home. Then World War II breaks out and Lisa is urged, for her own safety, to return to her family in their Somerset village. Reluctantly she decides her place is with her mother and brother, until the day that her old employer turns up with the charismatic Etienne Arnaud to offer her a unique and dangerous proposition: she is to return to France, assuming the role of Etienne's cousin.
As Lisette Arnaud, Lisa has no difficulty in passing herself off as a bona fide Frenchwoman far harder is resisting her feelings for Etienne, and dealing with the traumatic chain of events that lead her through heartache and loss to ultimately discover where her heart belongs.