Somerset 1931. Doctor Frances Brakespeare continues to settle into her new life in rural Somerset at Orchard Cottage Hospital striving to improve the medical treatments on offer to the community. After successfully establishing a mother and baby clinic Frances is determined to move with the times and add family planning advice to her roster - but are the residents of Norton Dene ready for such progress or will she face opposition? In her personal life her relationship with the Reverend Gregory Sampson becomes her safe haven whilst battling with an embittered family relative in London. As always Frances strives to honour the values inherited from her late benefactress Izzy Brakespeare. As further dark family secrets and sins unfold it seems the Brakespeare family name will have more resonance to Frances than she ever imagined and when a stranger enters her life Frances may finally have the answers she has always sought.