As the shadows of the Second World War roll in, a new generation of Cazalets take up the family's story. Louise, who dreams only of playing Hamlet, is brought brutally to the realisation that her parents have their own lives, too, with secrets, passions and yearnings. Clary, who religiously documents all aspects of her life in diaries and letters, learns that her father, who was in the Navy, is now missing somewhere on the shores of France.
And sensitive, imaginative Polly feels stuck — stuck without a vocation, stuck without information about her mother's illness, without anything except for her nightmares about the war.
