FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING ''Bittersweet ... dazzling'' Guardian ''Deeply pleasurable ... the ending made me cry'' The Times ''Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity'' Penelope Lively Violet is 38. The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiance - and her future. She is now considered a ''surplus woman''. But Violet is also fiercely independent and determined. Escaping her suffocating mother, she moves to Winchester to start a new life -a change that will require courage, resilience and acts of quiet rebellion. And when whispers of another world war surface, she must live with a secret that could change everything...