The Great War, the war to end all wars, has recently ended. Caroline Allen, a young fine arts student, senses a chance of freedom, of escape from the rigid expectations of her family. While nursing her mother, who is ill with Spanish Flu, she is invited by a friend, Judy Wilson, to travel to Paris. Judy’s father is part of the New Zealand delegation to the 1919 Peace Conference.

For Caroline it is a chance to explore European art, to see the originals of so many paintings she has studied only as black and white reproductions. Her friend Judy, however, is interested only in finding a ‘suitable’ husband. While in Paris Caroline meets Ashley Carrick-Jones, an army officer and a journalist with a “past” and an enigmatic role in the new Europe. His job takes him to the defeated cities – Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. Circumstances force Caroline to follow him.

Set in the six months following World War I, a period of upheaval in Europe, The Undone Years is the story of those times. Many hope for new beginnings, for freedom from the horror of fighting; but no one is free of those “undone years” – they cast a long shadow. Fears have been created and people have emerged from the trenches with very different moral codes.

The novel shows the differences in Europe – celebrations in Paris compared with the grim fight for survival in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. It also touches on the dilemma of how to make a just peace amidst the cries for vengeance; how to secure a future for Europe that would save it from further horrendous conflicts.

The novel compares the destructiveness of war with the creativity of the artist. Through it runs the story of Caroline and her development as a woman.