At 23 Elaine has achieved much more than a woman of her age in 1939 might have expected - or predicted. She is single minded, ambitious and highly intelligent and can handle the heavy responsibility that has fallen on her as war threatens. It seems that anything is possible. She is wooed by a neighbour, one of 'nature's gentleman', modest, unselfish, but limited. Frank desperately wants to marry her. Then she meets Robert Leonard, owner of the largest department store in Brighton, the most eligible man in the town and falls deeply in love with a man who seems to correspond to all her instincts and ambitions. The story takes Elaine and her family through the war and into the fifties and as she watches her bright daughter grow up she is determined that she shall not fall into the trap that ensnared Elaine. This is Part One of The Brighton Trilogy.