Wars, pandemic, and the Great Depression. This is a novel about personal triumph against adversity in a rapidly growing suburb of Melbourne Australia, during a time when the nation's very existence was in peril.

The narrative flows from World War I through a global pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. The Jenkins family, their friends and neighbours confront world-shattering events from the cocooned existence of an isolated island dragged into a global present. Not only must they deal with the intimate realities of domesticity, the conflicts, the anxieties and the fears, their lives are buffeted by forces beyond their control and comprehension.