It's 1968, and while the world is exploding around him, racially and politically, 17 year-old Kev Williams keeps a low profile working as a mechanic, the only black man in a white-owned garage.

He was keen to leave a school where he was an anomaly. A loyal son to Eunice and Cyrus, Kev knows his place in the family hierarchy and stays within it, despite the pain it causes him to see his half-sister, Yvonne, getting most of the attention. But times are changing for Kev too: he is not all he seems and has his own plans for moving on.

As the only white person in her husband's large family, Samantha Williams has had to counter the racial assumptions from his family and from her own. It hasn't been easy, but she gives as good as she gets and her father's disapproval of casual Kev didn't stop her getting married to him.

In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993 she is heartbroken by the killing, worried for her own children and acutely aware of how her black relations are looking to her for answers. For once, she questions her ability to balance both sides of the family - and whether her love for Kev is enough.