London, spring 1939. Ada Vaughan is a young and ambitious seamstress. Desperate to escape from her working-class home and blind to the warnings of war on the continent, she elopes with her lover to Paris. But. when war is declared they become trapped. He abandons her, pregnant and vulnerable. Taken prisoner and sent to Germany as slave labour, Ada is forced to survive on her wits alone, using her dressmaking skills to win favour with her captors. It is a decision which will haunt her during the war and its devastating aftermath.