New Zealand, 1943. Violet Trench crosses Lake Rotorua with a small boy, Wing Lee, but rows back alone.Twenty years later, the same body of water is the scene of an event that will have lasting repercussions for Violet and her employees at the café she now runs on the lake shore. The lives of these young people will diverge, their paths to independence taking them as far apart as Cambodia and the USA, but Violet's influence will continue to mark both those who leave and those who stay behind.



Dame Fiona Kidman OBE, Légion d'honneur, is one of New Zealand's foremost contemporary writers. A novelist, short story writer and poet, she is the author of more than 30 books. She has worked as a librarian, radio producer and critic, and as a scriptwriter for radio, television and film. She lives in Wellington.