THE HIDDEN YEARS

September 1939, troubled young Imogen Lockhart travels to Cornwall by train to deliver two small boys to their prep school, which has been evacuated to Penmartin House for the duration of the war. When she’s asked to stay on at the school as temporary cover for the usual matron she readily agrees. After all, it enables her to put off more serious decisions of what to do with her life.

But her time at the school turns out to be more complicated than she’d imagined. In 1966, sensitive and musical Belle Patterson is restless. She’s finishing her first year at a Midlands university but not enjoying it and is troubled by secrets in her family life.

When, after a chance meeting, she falls in love with talented and attractive folk musician Gray Tucker, he easily persuades her to abandon her studies and accompany him to Cornwall, a place that piques her interest because of a particular photograph she’s recently found of herself as a baby. On a small commune at Penmartin House near the beautiful Helford estuary she finds life off-grid idyllic at first, the other people creative and interesting, but underlying tensions soon reveal themselves. When the conflicts in the commune come to a head, Belle is forced to face some difficult truths.

She also comes to see how Imogen’s story entwines with her own and unravels the mysteries of her own family.