France, 1942.

Orphaned sisters Léa and Rose live under the increasingly oppressive German occupation in Orléans. Times have been tough since their mother died - all they have left is each other - but practical Léa does her best to take care of Rose, the daydreamer.

Then Léa loses her job, just as Rose has a sudden and heart-stopping encounter with André, a handsome young French fugitive, that changes her life forever.

The women must flee the city, and everything they've ever known, finding safe lodgings with a kindly winemaker and his family on their Loire valley farm.

But they aren't safe for long. And, faced with the grim choice between imprisonment or travelling to Germany to work for the war effort, Léa reluctantly chooses the latter, thinking only of taking care of Rose.

In a remote town in eastern Germany, Léa and Rose are confronted with the horror of the Nazis' brutality and treatment of the women workers, and learn to survive by clinging to the love they've each found in a bleak existence, and by keeping their enemy even closer . . .