Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the Lake District with a bully of a father and a brother who resents her. They want to keep her stuck at home, but Meg knows there's more to life than the kitchen sink and she's determined to find it.

Meg wants to be a sheep farmer - unusual for a woman - and life in this man's world proves tougher at times than she expected. For love and comfort, she turns to her best friend, Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who's more of a father figure to her than her own will ever be.

But it's Lanky Lawson's son, Jack, with his dark good looks she loves and hopes to marry one day. But loyalties are threatened as World War II approaches, and Meg gradually realises that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the haunting land she loves so much . . .