Lush, green, fragrant: the Indian hills of Assam are full of promise. But eighteen-year-old Clarissa Belhaven is normally full of worry. The family members tea plantation can be suffering, and so is her father, still grieving within the untimely loss of life of his wife, while Clarissa’s fragile sister, Olive, requirements appreciate and resourceful treatment.

Beautiful and headstrong, Clarissa soon attracts the attention of young, brash Wesley Robson, a rival tea planter. Yet before his motives become fully clear, tragedy befalls the Belhavens as well as the sisters are wrenched using their much loved tea garden towards the industrial roads of Tyneside.

A world from the just home she has ever known, Clarissa must start again. Using all her means, she must endure not merely poverty but jealousy and betrayal as well. Will the reappearance of Wesley give her the hyperlink to her outdated lifestyle that she so frantically craves? Or will a fast-changing globe as well as the advent of battle extinguish hope permanently?