If she was to make a mark on the world, she would have to do so
in another way. It is 1932, and the losses of the First World
War are still keenly felt.
Violet Speedwell, mourning for both her fiance and her brother
and regarded by society as a `surplus woman' unlikely to marry,
resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone.
A new life awaits her in Winchester. Yes, it is one of draughty
boarding-houses and sidelong glances at her naked ring finger
from younger colleagues, but it is also a life gleaming with
independence and opportunity. Violet falls in with the broderers,
a disparate group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for
the Cathedral, and is soon entwined in their lives and their
secrets. As the almost unthinkable threat of a second Great War
appears on the horizon Violet collects a few secrets of her own
that could just change everything.