Southsea, 1911. Young Otis Hewetson is spending a halcyon glorious holiday with her parents. Pretty, unconventional and rebellious, Otis is a teenager before that word was coined. And this golden summer will bring her friendships which will change her life and her love for ever. Otis is drawn to fellow guests at the Best Hotel in Southsea, Jack and Esther Moth. Snobbish Mrs. Hewetson is not amused - these are children of a police inspector and, consequently, lower down the social scale. But the paths of all three children are destined to cross as they grow from adolescence through love, through marriage, through the bitter bloodspilling of the War. To various sorts of knowledge but never to an easy acceptance.