Ann Guthrie considered herself exceptionally lucky to get a job as nurse on board that last word in luxury liners, the R.M.S. Shagreen, bound for the blue skies and the warm seas of the Far East and Australia. She knew her appointment as nurse on the Australia-bound ship was due to her father's longtime friendship with the company director, Nicholas Frazer. Yet she made up her mind to prove her own worth.

But she hadn't visualised passengers or crew as individuals. She hadn't, for instance, given a thought to the chance of sailing with Nicholas Frazer, or the beautiful widow Andrea Sheridan, the pianist who had been engaged to Nicholas once and showed every sign of wishing to be so again; or Tim Lane, Nick's friend and doctor, determined to keep him out of Andrea's clutches. Not to mention the dashing young Third Officer Nicholas, who fell for Ann himself and wouldn't take no for an answer!

It all added up to a far more emotion-laden trip than she had bargained for.