Sometimes in a family there is one person who is the centre of a pattern of relationships and changing circumstances. Such a one is Millie Flowers. Orphaned as a baby, unwittingly affected by an undetected murder, and barely educated, Millie's passage to adulthood is characterised by naivety and inexperience. Her son, John, his childhood interrupted by war, takes the first steps towards a future that neither he nor his mother could have foreseen. Drawing together people from disparate backgrounds, through chance meetings, coincidence, and unexpected consequences, the stories of the characters in this novel interweave across generations. An enemy who becomes a lover, an abandoned baby, an aged actor, all have a story that is a thread in the pattern of one family. In each generation there is a secret, of murder, innocence exploited, forbidden love. When eventually the biggest secret of all emerges, the links between the characters prove to be closer than any one of them could have guessed.