A man is found buried up to his neck in the mud of the Norfolk saltmarshes. Nine months later, at the end of the Second World War, he vanishes, leaving a newborn daughter, Lil. Taught by her mother to read the clouds, she lives a curious existence. But when, as a teenager, she becomes the object of two brothers' desire, her life begins to spiral out of control. Forty years later it is Lil's son, Pip, who attempts to makes sense of his family's intriguing history. Will the past repeat itself and is Pip, like his forebears, beginning to lose his own way between the creeks and the samphire?