1963: When Clara Samuels buys Butterfly Cottage, she knows the scandal she’ll cause.  A single woman buying property is not the ‘done thing’ especially not in a village like Carybrook.  But Clara has been in love with Butterfly Cottage, and its garden, since she used to play there before the War. And when she reconnects with her childhood friend, James her decision feels serendipitous.  But the true scandal is yet to come. Because within six months, Clara will leave England under  mysterious circumstances, and Butterfly Cottage will stand empty for more than 50 years.

2018: No one is more surprised than Meredith, when she’s bequeathed a cottage by a great aunt she’d never heard of.  She hopes briefly, that the inheritance could be the answer to her  financial problems.  But when she arrives in Suffolk, she is shocked to discover a man is already living there.  A young gardener, who claims he was also left half of Butterfly Cottage.