It focuses on Randy Jollifer, formerly of the Royal Navy, attempting to settle down to postwar life in his home town.

[3] The book and its sequels sold steadily, without enjoying the spectacular popularity of his best-known work Love on the Dole.

While there is a certain attraction between them, she is drawn to the family manor house owned by Jollifer's father, who has disinherited his son during the war.

After he suffers a heart attack, an accidental fire started by relatives searching for the hidden gold sovereigns that the miserly older man has stashed due to his profiteering during the war, burns down much of the house.

Ann ultimately marries another local man, a doctor while Jollifer inherits the ruined manor house.