A story of loss, defiance and change emerges from the magnificent setting of Cape Town in the late 1930s through the outbreak of World War II. Young Libka Hoffman is struggling with the loss of her father and the social conventions that frown upon her relationships with her most trusted friends. Libka's exploration of socially forbidden territory eventually brings her to expulsion from her school and ostracism by her peers. Told in moving and lyrical prose, this novel conveys an authentic and rarely achieved insight into Jewish life in South Africa during the tumultuous times around World War II.