Val was working as a land girl when the Americans arrived at the nearby airfield in 1944. Mike, a young American airman, came into her life soon after, and so too did Peter Woodhouse, a dog badly treated on a neighbouring farm and taken in by her aunt.
The new standalone novel from McCall Smith offers a wartime romance in the tradition of "La's Orchestra Saves The World", playing out across England and Germany from 1944 until the seventies.