A narrow winding lane and a scattering of stone cottages, somewhere in the heart of the Cumberland mountains. That was Kirdale. A ghost village now, with only a handful of people still remaining — the few diehards who were determined to live on in their homes until the very last moment, until the mountains were blasted apart and the valley became filled with the water of the new reservoir.

They were an oddly assorted group: the gentle, kindly old couple; the over-officious ex-army major and his son and daughter; the sultry beauty and her swarthy, quick-tempered lover. Seven isolated and strangely lonely people.

And to join them one stormy night came the two young men whom fate had not intended to be in Kirdale.

So it was to nine people — not seven, as the newspapers were later to report — that disaster came...

The catastrophe was swift, sudden and complete in the early hours of that horrifying morning. But the seven villagers and their two unexpected visitors were nevertheless to awaken to a new day...

A new day, in another time, in a familiar yet bewildering place.