Anna's fascination with WW1 began with two stories her grandfather told her, it was also around the time when women like Helena Rubenstein proved that women could forge business empires. Against the backdrop of the war, her heroine Lily's life unfolds in unexpected ways, with tragedy, loss and love as she finds the strength of character to pursue her dreams.

When forced to leave school to become a parlourmaid to the Groves, the richest family in the Yorkshire mining town of Hope, she has little idea of how her life is about to change. When war breaks out in 1914, Jonathon Groves, her employer's dashing son joins the newly formed Royal Flying Corps and, on leave, seduces Lily and leaves without knowing that she is pregnant. Neither her father nor the Groves want anything to do with her, but with the help of a friend, Lily is able to travel to the Yorkshire Dales to stay with Annis Clayton. Lily begins to help Annis in making creams and lotions and sees the potential for selling them to a wider market than the local farmers' wives. When they team up with Ian Steele, the local pharmacist, they establish a business that expands beyond Lily's dreams. Everything looks set for a happy ending when she and Ian admit their attraction to each other, but Jonathon's return into Lily's life complicates matters. Nothing in her life has been easy, but everything has been the making of her.