Alice is nursing an injured hand and a broken heart when she moves to the village of Churchwood at the start of WWII. She is desperate to be independent but worries that her injuries will make that impossible. Kate lives with her family on Brimbles Farm, where her father and brothers treat her no better than a servant. With no mother or sisters, and shunned by the locals, Kate longs for a friend of her own. Naomi is looked up to for owning the best house in the village. But privately, she carries the hurts of childlessness.

Pearl has given up on her dreams of being a journalist after being denied a promotion because of her gender. Joining the WAAF as a radio telephone operator for Bomber Command, Pearl's new job at RAF Fenthorpe serves two purposes – providing an income for her grandmother, and keeping a close eye on her younger sister, Thea, an instrument repairer at another Lincolnshire bomber station.

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her with a job.

October 1940. When VAD nurse Evie narrowly escapes being killed in an air raid during the London Blitz, it propels her to make a life-changing decision to break free of her troubled and unhappy life. She escapes to the Norfolk countryside to start afresh, with a job at the newly opened Great Plumstead Hall hospital, and a wonderful new home at Rookery House. The community of Great Plumstead welcomes evacuees to the village—mothers and children bombed out of their London homes. Sisters Prue and Thea, along with members of The Mother's Day Club, help the new arrivals settle in.