Secrets and lies linger in the very walls of the solid, old Normandy house in which Thérèse and Léonie, French and English cousins of the same age, grow up after the war. Intrigued by parents' and servants' guilty silences and the broken shrine they find buried in the woods, the girls weave their own elaborate fantasies, unwittingly revealing the village secret and a deep shame that will come to haunt Thérèse and Léonie in their adult lives...

Resonant with the sounds and secrets of French provincial life, this is a richly imagined and sensuous tale from one of Britain's most exciting contemporary writers.