Rachel arrives in London from South Africa to make a new home for herself and her three young children while her news-photographer husband jets from one international trouble spot to another. In the school playground she meets another mother, more recently arrived from Somalia and still looking as if she doesn't know where she has landed. As Rachel gets drawn into the complexities of Haleemo's life story and those of other Somali refugees, she takes on far more than she would once have felt ready to; and unexpected things happen in her own personal life.