For Mary Callaghan, marriage has brought heartaches and disappointment. But with it have come joys, the greatest of which are her daughters. And what Mary wants most in the world for her girls is what she never had - a husband who will offer the security her own hard-drinking, free-spending, brash-talking Jack denied her. But when Daisy confesses she's pregnant, Mary knows the future looks grim, for the father's rough, pleasure-loving Sam O'Grady. As Nell watches her sister sink into bitter poverty, she begins to wonder if she could ever allow herself to fall in love, when her own mother and sister are suffering so much at the hands of men they once worshipped. As the world around her grows more uncertain and war more likely by the day, love seems to Nell an increasingly dangerous game. Especially when a marriage based on mutual respect and material security -as well as the prospect of the child for which she longs - appears to be presenting itself...