1941. Violetta 'Vee' Smith has a secret. Her real name is Schmidt, and she is half German. Vee and her mother May risk being interned as enemy aliens - if their neighbours don't find out and torch their smallholding near Southampton first. Vee and May need false papers and local 'businessman' Sammy Chesterton offers them.for a price. But the price is too high, and so she runs away to Gosport, where ferries plough back and forth to Portsmouth. When handsome ferry skipper Jack offers Vee a job and a room in his house with the other ferry girls, Vee finds herself falling for him.

There's just one problem: his wife, Madelaine.