It is 1946, and seventeen-year-old Laura Telling is stagnating in her dilapidated Sussex family home, while her eccentric parents slip further into isolation. A chance encounter with Paul Lovell offers her the chance to alter the course of her destiny - and to embark on a new life in South Africa.

Many miles north, sixteen-year-old Gay Gibson is desperate to escape Birkenhead. When the girls' paths cross in Johannesburg, Laura is exposed to Gay's wild life of parties and inappropriate liaisons. Each in their own worlds, but thrown together, the girls find their lives inextricably entangled, with fatal consequences...