Beyond the Blue — Andrea Macpherson

In a Scottish mill town purged of men by war, four unforgettable women navigate a treacherous time, guided only by the bonds of family and their bold dreams of escape.

In 1918, rainy Dundee is nearly emptied of men. The Great War has left the town's women both newfound freedom and servitude. They toil in the deadly jute mills, taking in the children of perished family members and praying their own bodies -- and spirits -- do not fail them too.

A grateful widow of the war, Morag shelters her daughters as best she can: beautiful Caro schemes to escape the working class with well-calculated seduction, while Wallis works in the mill alongside her mother, slowly fortifying both spirit and pocketbook for a more radical departure. Morag's orphaned niece, Imogen, seeks to understand her fragile mother's death, and the return of the father who abandoned them.