In this novel, the author takes us to sunny Ceylon, to the plantations of two settlers, where the biggest part of the story about the girl Waltraut, forcibly engaged to an unloved man, will take place.
Here she will give her heart to another, but the shackles of engagement will not break so easily and bring her into the arms of the beloved Jan.
Nine-year-old Alice Hart grows up in a secluded home, between sugar cane fields and the sea, where her mother's magnificent flowers and their hidden messages protect her from her father's dark moods.