First in the Cornish chronicle of the Nankervis family. Nonie first met Matthew Sutton when he came as a teacher to the art college where she was a student. It wasn't his ideal career choice, it was that or starvation, and maybe the sedate south-coast town of Embridge wasn't ready for him, but however that might be, his impact on the college turned out to be unforgettable. A disillusioned ex-bomber pilot from World War II and a twenty-year-old of the sixties is hardly a match made in heaven, and things were further complicated by the turbulent love-life of Nonie's best friend Helen, and her whirlwind romance with conventional solicitor Jerry Nankervis. And then there was Peachey, third in this close triangle of friends, whose twisted thinking and misdirected suspicions were to change everything, irrevocably, for them all ... but the real spanner in the works in the end was probably Dot. The Dreaded Dot. It had all the ingredients of a simple love story at the outset. But then, so did Romeo & Juliet.