Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the English Lake District with a bully of a father who wants to keep her stuck at home. But Meg wants more than the kitchen sink, and turns for love to her best friend Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who's more of a father figure than her own father will ever be. But World War Two approaches and Meg soon discovers that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the land she loves. Until one day a stranger arrives in the dale and her world changes for ever.