Mary Hocking Knihy

In this second volume of Mary Hocking's excellent trilogy, England joins the world in its march to war, sweeping along the members of the Fairley household, their relations and friends. It is 1939, and great changes come running to meet them all, snatching at their innocence and steadfast convictions and tossing them far away. Alice, Ben and Guy travel overseas, serving in the same war but on very different battlegrounds. For those who stay behind, Judith, Louise, Claire and Daphne, the struggle is to preserve the home, to keep things going, no matter what. But the sudden insecurity of the war confuses them. It gives them new strengths and fresh dreams, but leaves them still furiously hunting for a future, hoping that the old familiar beliefs will be patiently waiting for them to catch up again.

As the 1939-1945 war slows to a clumsy halt, a trembling world holds out its arms to welcome peace back home again. Alice Fairley, her friends and her family are surprised to find themselves so unprepared for peacetime. In a way, it's like starting all over again: all the things one was confident about have disappeared or changed shape somehow, while things which were acceptable, or even pleasant, now seem different, dull, irksome. Noisy whispers of spy-rings and foreign conspiracies provoke shockwaves of malice and stinging intolerance. The world has grown up. Quickly, they discover that the battle is not over yet . . . persistent spectres of duty and guilt pick their victims indiscriminately.