"Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be recieved as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmers daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, untill the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve." From the bookjacket.