Seventeen-year-old Juno Marlowe - pretty, but diffident and awkward - is caught in a World War II air raid as she crosses London after seeing off to the front the two shallow young men she has worshiped like a puppy for years. Sheltered overnight by an ailing stranger, she is launched by his sudden death - and the letter he charges her to deliver to his father - into an unlooked-for but defiant journey.

Finding herself embraced without question by his eccentric family, Juno begins to blossom under the watchful gaze of the estate's reclusive owner, Robert Copplestone.

A once-charming, robust man who has been shattered by the loss of his wife and, now, the death of his son, Robert is immediately drawn to Juno's wounded but unflappable self. Gradually and almost against his will, he learns to love again and patiently waits for Juno to shed a childish love for those who did not love her back.

In the blacked-out English countryside, an eccentric farm family and an idyllic spring transform Juno's slighted, wounded existence into strength and joy and, above all, a life as more than just a part of the furniture.