` Exploring the pain and confusion of displaced persons at the end of the Second World war, which hardly any novels have done yet. I read with great pleasure'Tim Pears I love that her novels take me to unexplored places and times' Linda Grant`Such a beautiful and powerful book, emotional yet unsentimental. Rachel Seiffert's focus on a small, rural town in North Germany, from Burgermeister to abandoned baby unforgettably reminds us of the cost of war' Lucy Jago `Brilliant piece of story-telling -- stubbornly hopeful' Andrew MillerNorthern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter's events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can't carry his secret alone.