For Eveleen Hardcastle life gets no better than growing up on Pear Tree Farm in the Lincolnshire countryside. Her family works hard for the Dunsmore estate and Eveleen finds it impossible to resist the charms of their employer's son, Stephen Dunsmore. But Jimmy, ever quick to antagonise, ensures that his sister's clandestine trysts do not remain so for long.

Mary Hardcastle reacts to the news of her daughter's affair with a shocking ferocity, which seems to be born more of bitterness than maternal protectiveness. But what is it that fuels Mary's resentment towards her daughter? Unable to ignore her own feelings, Eveleen continues to meet Stephen in secret. But her deception has a cruel price to pay when her beloved father is found dead from a heart attack. And worse yet, Stephen, far from providing Eveleen with the comfort she craves, deserts her in her hour of need and callously evicts the Hardcastles from the farm.

Suddenly homeless, Eveleen is left to take the family reins and she fights to make a new life for her family in Nottinghamshire. And then she makes a stunning discovering about her mother's past which changes all their lives for ever...