From the author of The Infinite Air, a powerful story of women's lives spanning decades and continents. New Zealand, 1943. Violet Trench crosses Lake Rotorua with a small boy, Wing Lee, but rows back alone. Twenty years later, the same body of water is the scene of an event that will have lasting repercussions for Violet and her employees at the cafe she runs now on the lake shore. The lives of these young people will diverge, their paths to independence taking them as far apart as Cambodia and the USA, but Violet's influence will continue to mark both those who leave and those who stay behind.|

Described as a 'beautiful writer' by The Times, Fiona Kidman brings us a powerful story of women's lives spanning decades and continents.

'Engaging and captivating' The Lady Magazine

1943. Violet Trench crosses Lake Rotorua with a small boy, but rows back without him. Sixty years later, a boat is ritually set alight on the same body of water.

The intervening years see Violet open a café by the lake the scene of an event in the summer of 1963 with lasting repercussions for Violet and her young employees. Their lives diverge, but Violet's influence on them all and on runaway Jessie Sandle in particular will linger like the scent of the truffles with which she infuses her dishes.