At the age of eight, Kitty Conway comes to live with her six Winstanley cousins and spends the next 16 years trying to become one of the group. Closest in age to Frannie, Kitty admires pretty, older Lexy and falls in love with the insouciant Jack. The four attend the 1936 Olympics and are introduced to Nazism in Berlin. Then Lexy falls in love with a German and elopes. When war comes, Kitty is visiting them and helps with their resistance efforts before escaping to England. She follows Jack to France to search for Fran, who has married a Jew and disappeared in Paris. Kitty's efforts to locate and return the scattered cousins to the family home result in her feeling complete acceptance at last.