1910. Anna Garvey arrives in Caernoweth, Cornwall, with her daughter and a secret. Having come from Ireland to take up an inheritance of the local pub, she and her 18-year-old daughter, Mairead, are initially viewed with suspicion by the close-knit community. Anna soon becomes acquainted with Freya Penhaligon, a vulnerable girl struggling to keep her family business afloat in the wake of her grandmother's death, and starts to gain the trust of the locals.

As their friendship deepens and Freya is brought out of her shell by the clever and lively Mairead, even Freya's protective father, Matthew, begins to thaw. But when a part of Anna's past she'd long tried to escape turns up in the town, she is forced to confront the life she left behind - for her sake and her daughter's, too....