For generations, the wealthy Porter family has sought refuge in their summer home on the rocky Ashaunt Peninsula off the coast of Massachusetts, where the days are endless and carefree. However, when a military base is established there in the summer of 1942, the idyll comes to a sudden end. A son goes off to war, a daughter is robbed of her innocence, and a nanny must choose between her love for a soldier and her charges. It is only in the following decades, as the Porters' children and grandchildren grow up and the ripples of new wars and crises reach Ashaunt, that it becomes clear that the summer of the soldiers was just one of many. With great empathy and in brilliant prose, Elizabeth Graver tells the story of a family and a coastal region, creating a poignant and compelling portrait.