As thousands of Brits are fighting on the Front Line, a new breed of women emerges to hold the Home Front together. Fiercely independent and fiery-spirited, these women are a raucous group of munition workers. One group of "canaries", so-called because of their chemically-stained yellow faces ...
In Venice, Frances Croy is working to leave the previous year behind: another novel published to little success, a scathing review she can't quite manage to forget, and, most of all, the real reason behind her self-imposed exile from London: the incident at the Savoy. Sequestered within an aging palazzo, Frankie finds comfort in the emptiness of Venice in winter, in the absence of others. And then Gilly appears.