Jack, Annie and Tom are three adolescents happily growing up together in the Suffolk countryside. But the innocence of youth is fading and being replaced by an awareness of developing passions that distort their friendship. Jack has come to view Annie in a different light, and Tom no longer seems the amiable playmate he once was. The trials and tribulations the trio are about to encounter are deepened further by the manipulative landowner, Nigel de Vere, who is about to cast his shadow over the entire village community of Upper Bristow.