For fans of Sebastian Faulks, Caroline Scott, Sebastian Barry, and Pat Barker.

Inspired by an extraordinary real-life story from the First World War.

‘For most of us, it takes a while to realise that we cross lines in our lives. Silent, unmarked borders of time that we pass, as if in our dreams, without ever realising what we are leaving behind.We do not see that the matchless nights of being cherished and held close are vanishing even as we live them, and that we are all refugees from one war torn country or another, or from one war torn love story or another. Time moves so deceptively that we never say, ‘This is the last walk I will take with you along the shore.’ Or ‘This afternoon I carried a child in my arms for the final time.’ Perhaps early this morning while we dressed and put the kettle on, our destiny advanced unwatched.’

1916. After a military tribunal finds him guilty of cowardice on the battlefields of France, artist Sam Burke is spared death by firing squad only so that his skills can now be used to help fellow soldiers who have been brutally disfigured in the trenches.

And so he finds himself at a castle by the Irish Sea, surrounded by casualties of war and trying to come to terms with the violent death of his best friend and the promise he has failed to keep.

At the Tin Nose Shop, Sam battles his own demons as he learns to create intricate masks to hide the mutilation suffered by the men around him. But will he too be able to find the courage to make the same journey from despair to a desire to live on in the world?

A stirring and emotional tale based on the real-life story of the Tin Nose Shop, about the soldiers who wore masks the rest of their lives to hide their mutilated faces.