One snowy night, Lily Matheson finds herself on the same road she took years ago when she left behind Westfall along with the boy she’d loved for years. Propelled by a burning ambition to prove herself bigger than the small town existence everyone expected her to embrace, she forged a different path that took her far, far away from the future Adam Bishop once hoped to have with her. Counting him as the highest price she had to pay for her dreams, she contented herself with her new life until it became all too clear that the present was no longer a means to chase an elusive future but to hold on to a fast-fading past. In the company of memories, in the town they knew as well as each other, and in a night when time is at a standstill, Lily and Adam discover that to some, your first love could be your last if you’re brave enough to find your way back.

The year is 1969 and Elara recalls her younger, more turbulent years at St. Catherine's, a private all-girls school in the heart of Hampshire, England. When she was eleven and she stumbled into a quiet meadow nestled in the surrounding forest. When she was twelve and she met Sam, a charming boy with sun spun hair and spring green eyes from Ravensworth, the neighbouring all-boys school. When she was thirteen and it was just Sam and Elara in the meadow, secret meetings that made her time at St. Catherine's less lonely. When she was fourteen and it was no longer Sam and Elara, it was Sam and Elara and Rosemary. When life became a little more complicated and heartbreaking after that.