Grief-stricken after losing her twin sister, Ruby Reid comes to the remote Shetland Islands in 2001 to escape, taking work as companion to elderly Hanna Kristiansen on a rugged homestead.
The demanding post offers a welcome distraction from a devastating choice she still has to make.
In 1940, Hanna's quiet life on the fjords of northern Norway is overturned when her hometown is attacked and Nazi occupiers seize the country.
Alongside her twin sister she joins the resistance, trains in Scotland, and falls for a charismatic member of the shadowy special forces supporting Norway's fight for freedom, only to leave him behind and return to dangerous underground work at home.
As Hanna recounts the war years, Ruby's grief begins to ease, and the older woman finds unexpected comfort in speaking to her younger friend.
Surrounded by the untamed Shetland croft, they come to see that strength can live inside fragility, and that hope for a new beginning remains.
