Catherine Carreg has grown up a tomboy spending her days racing her ponies with Deio the drovers son in a small Welsh village. But Catherine is consumed by a longing to escape the monotony of village life & with Deios help runs away to London. Alone in the unfamiliar bustle of the city Catherine finds a position in a rest home for sick governesses in Harley Street run by Miss Florence Nightingale. Then as the nation is gripped by reports of the war in the Crimea Catherine volunteers as a nurse
- & her life changes beyond all recognition. Arriving in Scutari she is pitched into a living nightmare & against the passion & heroism of one of the most traumatic wars in history she is forced to grow up quickly & painfully & learn the hardest lessons of love & war.