"If that's what love does to you, I'd rather not have anyone fall in love with me... not that anyone would..."

At seventeen, Rose is convinced no one will ever love her, living as she does in the shadow of her beautiful older sister Diana. If Diana is the swan, Rose is the ugly duckling. But for both girls this is going to be an extraordinary summer.

It is 1943 and the war has left its mark even in the sleepy seaside town where the girls have been sent out of harm's way. For the first time in their lives they are free of adult restriction...

For both girls it is a summer of self-discovery, but especially for Rose who unearths a love story set in another war, a story that becomes more real when she falls in love herself...