Hardback : Piatkus Books ISBN 0.7499.0338.4
Paperback : Time Warner ISBN 0.7515.1794.1
Large Print : Magna ISBN 0.7505.1168.0

When young Eileen Ross marries handsome Johnny Cleary, a man eight years older than herself, she does not expect happiness. For she is not marrying him for love, but to escape from a future which would otherwise be bleak; as a single mother, deserted by the father of her child.

Respectable Johnny, devoted to Eileen and in total ignorance of her affair with another man, offers her a way out and she seizes it. Attentive, generous and loving, Johnny is the ideal husband and father. Against her expectations, Eileen begins to find joy in her marriage just as her younger sister Claire is discovering for herself the magic of romance. Micheal O'Hara falls in love with Claire the first time he sees her and tells her he plans to make her his wife. For Claire, things will be very different; no lies and evasions, no hastily conducted ceremonies for her, she vows. But a cruel revelation forces a dramatic change of plan and Claire and Micheal have a Gretna Green marriage - only for tragedy to strike a second time.

It is Johnny Cleary who steadfastly steers the Ross family through its most traumatic time to date. And ironically, just as Eileen realises the strength of her feeling for the man she thought she could never love, her long-hidden secret threatens to tear her marriage apart.