Those who have read The Chadwick Ttrilogy will be delighted to revisit the family and their friends at The Keep.

At the end of the trilogy Jolyon, who had been abandoned by his mother Maria, is living at the Keep with his father and his stepmother - Fliss.  He has plans to turn part of the grounds of the old house into a small holding growing organic fruits and vegetables - an ambition his mother views with disdain.

Now, however, Jolyon is a successful television presenter of  gardening programmes while Keep Organics (the company he had started) is thriving and the recently widowed Maria, lonely  and impressed by her son¹s fame, reappears and hopes to step back into his life. 

When Jolyon brings his new girlfriend Henrietta home to meet the extended family, he finds it difficult to trust Maria and forgive the hurt she had inflicted on him.   Henrietta also is vulnerable from the break-up of her parents¹ marriage.

The wind was rising; it plucked restlessly at the storm-weathered stone walls and breathed in the chimney. It stroked the sea’s glittering moonlit surface to little peaks and rustled drily amongst the stiff broken bracken on the cliff. The row of coastguard cottages turned blank eyes to the long rollers that creamed over the sand, sinking away to a delicate salty froth at the tide’s reach. A cloud slid across the moon’s round bright face. On the steep, slippery, gorse-plucking cliff path, a yellow light flickered and danced and disappeared.

The tall, gaunt deerhound padded gently to her side and she laid her hand on his rough head. They stared together into the night. To the west, beyond Stoke Point, the squat, bright-lit ferry from Plymouth edged into sight, chugging its way to Roscoff. No other light showed.