In the summer of 1944 returning soldiers Canning Christie and his father Michael arrive in South Australia from the desert sands of North Africa.

Canning carries the trauma of war and a fractured memory of a terrible event, while charismatic Michael resumes his womanising ways, intent on concealing his own secret wound.

Inexplicably drawn to a vineyard on their land, Canning dreams of producing his own wine. And a chance meeting with Grace Huntley, daughter of the local landowner, offers him hope for that future.

But dormant memories keep rising up- his childhood with his mother, the years traversing the interior with his father and his time at the front.

Soon, viniculture becomes an obsession - one he suspects lies in a hazy recollection of a night in battle. To move forward Canning must reconcile the past, even if that means working with Italian POWs and accepting help from an immigrant German . . .

. . . And ultimately taking a stand against his own father, whose increasingly reckless behaviour is threatening to destroy their new life.

'Unputdownable ... epitomising the great Australian novel.' Anita Heiss on Nicole's previous novel The Last Station