Annie Melville thinks she finally has everything she wants: a loving husband with whom romance and babies is a real possibility, a good home, and the dangerous Billy Dawson out of her life for good. But, in an unforgiving age where women alone rely on the family circle to survive the perils of urban life, what happens when family drama threatens to tear he world apart?
Almost as soon as they are married, Annie's new husband, Alex, a police sergeant with the Dundee constabulary, shows his true colours and Annie's dream of romance turns into a nightmare. He is jealous of women and men both, suspects her of disloyalty and, when a letter arrives from a long lost friend in Ireland, it tips him over the edge.
But, despite being beset by an abusive husband and having her dreams of romance and babies worn away, Annie has other problems to deal with. Her sister, Mary - the last of he family circle - is confronting an historical romance of her own in the form of one of Annie's previous suitors, Joe Cassiday. In such an urban life and with the looming threat of the First World War hanging over them, their union has resulted in a child that may never see its father.
And what of Billy Dawson, the man whose hasty actions caused all this family drama and misery? He still pines for Annie, but when a drunken accident one night causes a fire that nearly kills him, he decides to put his past behind him and leave the women alone to get on with their lives. He takes lodgings in the house of Josephine MacIntyre, an attractive widow who soon falls for Billy's charms.
In this masterful sequel to a truly wonderful debut, the lives of Annie Melville (nee Pepper) and those she meets are woven into a complex tapestry that depicts the struggles of women and men in early twentieth-century Dundee.