Little Jennie grows up in the 1920's and 30's on a valley farm near Abergavenny - a childhood dominated by the love of father and siblings, and the hatred of an obsessive mother. Her life is completely different from that of young Harry Jenkins, born into a Blaenavon mining community repeatedly struck by disaster. Through tragic marriages to other people, into World War Two and beyond, both must overcome their personal devastations before they are ready to love again.

"The Mountains Between" tells the story of a small girl fighting to keep her balance in the face of an unbalanced mother and the deepest heart-blows a child can bear. It's a story of strength and courage; of a girl-woman with a huge heart who took what life threw at her and kept on loving - the story of a survivor.

It's the story of a Big Pit mining family who suffered an unspeakable horror that nearly killed them, but they got up and got on because that's what those amazing people did. And it's a story about two young people who could have and should have found each other much sooner, but their valleys were separated by the mountains and never the twain, in those days, would meet.

It's a war story; a love story; a hate story. But more than all this, it's the story of a chunk of Wales's lifetime slashed like a scar on a mountainside - about the people of Wales, the people of the mountains and the valleys who formed the beating heart of that country; the people who enable the current Welsh to stand proud and hold the Red Dragon high, because of what their forefathers did.

This book is the story of their essence.