When pretty Sara Pallister's father dies, she is taken in by her narrow minded bullying uncle in Whitton Grange mining village. Here she is irresistably drawn to leather-jacketed motorbike riding Joe Dimarco, son of the extrovert Italians who run the ice-cream parlour. But neither of their families approve the love match and strive to keep them apart. As the shadows of the 2nd World War gather and hostility to the Italians errupts into violence, Sara and Joe's love seems doomed. With its vivid backdrop of a pit town strained by the tensions of war, The Darkening Skies is a vibrant and moving story of conflicting loyalties, passions and cultures, and follows the award- nominated The Hungry Hills in the Durham Trilogy.