It is the summer of 1919, and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. When she is sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend at a seaside hotel, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas. Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club. She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s brother, who warms in Constance’s presence. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

East Sussex, 1914. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. But just as Beatrice Nash, the teacher, comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.