Betrayed by her lover, Bella Ford vows revenge, but instead her arduous search brings her to the home of the Wainwright family. Slowly the three sons restore Bella's trust and, sharing the hardships and pleasures of their lives, she again finds happiness and love. Them on the day of the traditional summer feast, the past comes crashing back into Bella's life and with it a violent and terrible tragedy.

H. E. Bates, in full Herbert Ernest Bates, was born in Rushden, Northmptonshire on 16th May 1905. He was a popular writer work covered many genres. He wrote poetry, plays and essays on the country and on gardening, but is best known as a novelist and master short-story writer.Bates attended Kettering Grammar School, where he met his English master, Edmund Kirby, who was to instil in Bates a love of literature and inspired his ambition to become a writer. With his poem "Armistice Day, November 11th 1920", the school magazine-that universal graveyard of budding poets'-gave him the first of a host of embarrassments of seeing myself in print.