'Oh, Kelsha is a distant place, over the mountains from everywhere. You go over the mountains to get there, and eventually , through dreams.'

'I can picture the two children in their coats arriving. It is the start of the summer and all the customs of winter and spring are behind us. Not that those customer are tended to now, much.'

Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah live and work on a small farm in a remote and beautiful part of Wicklow in late 1950s Ireland.

All about them the old green roads are being tarred, cars are being purchased, a way of life is about to disappear. Like two old rooks, they hold to their hill in Kelsha, cherishing everything. When Annie's nephew and his wife are set to go to London to find work, their two small children, a little boy and his older sister, are brought down to spend the summer with their great-aunt.

It is a strange chance for happiness for Annie. But against this happiness moves the figure of Billy Kerr, with his ambiguous attentions to Sarah, threatening to drive Annie from her last niche of safety in the world. The world of childish innocence also proves darkened and puzzling to her, and she struggles to find clear ground, clear light - to preserve her sense of love and place against these subtle forces of disquiet.

A summer of adventure, pain, delight and ultimately epiphany unfolds for both the children and their elderly caretakers in this poignant and exquisitely told story of innocence, loss and reconciliation from one of Ireland's finest young writers.