Lily Grace has escaped the confines of the Scottish village where she grew up, and is at college in Newcastle. She loves her independent student life and hopes to stretch her wings even further by working on a cruise ship for the summer. The only cloud on the horizon is the blunder she made when she kissed lecturer Gerard Reneé, not realising he was a married man. Then a trip to Ireland for a family funeral changes everything. There she meets student Dara Ryan and her brother Declan is smitten by the gorgeous Ave, who was abandoned at a convent as a baby. Lily and Dara fall in love but she is fearful that a long-distance love affair is doomed to fail. When her father, fuelled by drink and emotion after the funeral, makes a shocking confession, and Ava involves them all in a heartbreaking crisis, Lily realises that Gerard Reneé is the least of the problems she must solve before summer's end.