Before we went down into the cellar I looked across the road. The bombed house stared back at me like a toothless beggar-woman. There would be women like that soon enough. Children too. But we would be gone by then, dragging our guilt and sadness with us like heavy suitcases. Fifteen-year old Mira has grown up in the small town of Zazour. Her country of Lyrian has been under the grip of a ruthless dictator for decades. Mira and her family have always lived a quiet life but everything changes after a protest in town. With Zazour under siege, they are forced to flee to a refugee camp across the border, eventually settling in Neeland, thousands of miles away. Now, in adult life, as Mira’s father begins to fail in hospital, the secret she and her older brother Kaz have kept for years, threatens to explode - just like the bombs that fell on Zazour - and destroy the life Mira has built for herself.