The Proof of Love

the long version

During the long, hot summer of 1976, a young Cambridge mathematician arrives in a remote village in the Lake District and takes on a job as a farm labourer. Painfully awkward and shy, Spencer Little is viewed with suspicion by the community and his only real friendship is with scruffy, clever ten-year-old Alice. When he saves Alice from a mountain fire, he begins at last to feel accepted, but as he is drawn deeper into the lives of others, he also becomes aware of their secrets - and of the difficulty of keeping his own. As the heatwave intensifies and a web of complicity tightens around him, Spencer realizes that he will be forced to choose: between passion and logic, between loyalty and truth ...