In the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis wildly misinterprets the relationship between her sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, childhood friends home from Cambridge. So when her young cousin is assaulted, Briony gives in to her hyperactive imagination and blames the atrocity on Robbie. It is a terrible decision that alters lives and fills Briony with an everlasting sense of guilt.

It is the end of May 1940, the British government has put out a call for fishing boats to help rescue the British soldiers trapped at Dunkerque and Aiden is the son of a fisherman with access to his father's dory--his parents forbid him to go, but Aiden has already lost one brother to the war, and his other brother is somewhere over there with the British Expeditionary Force; so despite his fear of the ocean, he and his best friend Sally set out to...