Two hundred thousand pounds! That is the amount of the legacy Gerald Fleece left to his step-daughter Lizette, but there are strings attached to the bequest. Her stepfather's family, sheep farmers in far-off New Zealand, have three sons, and if Lizette is to inherit she must marry one of them. Swallowing her pride for the sake of her aged, dependent aunts, she sails alone for New Zealand, hoping for some way out, but of the three sons, Colin is too young, Miles is unhappily married, and Hal is in love with the beautiful, ruthless Barbara, who has long seen herself as mistress of the family's vast and beautiful sheep station.
The drama of loyalties, loneliness, bitterness and suspicion is played out against the vivid background of the sheep-dotted New Zealand countryside which the author knows well, for though the characters and story are imaginary, she herself spent her childhood on the sheep station she has called Waimanai. She now lives in England and writes also under her married name, Anne Eyre Worboys.