It is September 1941 and nine-year-old Hannah Flynn is about to leave her native Hull and become one of that illustrious number known as 'them townies'. Standing at the station, with few possessions in the little case she is clutching, she is ready to leave that scarred city to experience life as an evacuee in rural Lincolnshire, an environment as far removed as any foreign country. This child is a dreamer, a gentle, intelligent, passive soul, and not at all the sort of girl to cope with the coarse ways of her foster parents. Elsie Porter's rough and obsessive mothering combined with the horrors of earth closets, fat bacon, sexual abuse and complicity in murder cause deep unhappiness and a fear of life itself. When she finds herself suddenly orphaned, life becomes intolerable. This is a perceptive novel about Hannah's life, probing the effects of those early experiences as she grows into a young woman, until she is finally forced to confront the ghosts of her past.

The story initially focuses on Hannah Clayton’s grandson Leigh in America describing the circumstances of his early years and ultimate orphan status, but it soon settles in to life at Willow Cottage in a small village in Lincolnshire where time unravels to reveal the big picture of Hannah and her extended family, and several generations.

Murder, abduction, and family tragedy mixed with extraordinary psychic happenings and close family bonds give this story a fantastical quality as it follows in the footsteps of The Magic Mooncat. Lois Fenn studies each of the individuals involved in a way that is entertaining and heartfelt, and has a wonderful gift for creating believable characters as she deftly interweaves the threads of this family tale to create a compelling yet comforting picture of rural life through the generations.

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