A marvelous work of historical fiction, beautifully crafted and inhabited by morally complex and fully realized characters… compelling, immersive, and utterly impossible to put down. -Jennifer Chiaverini, New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker

Anna Karenina meets World War II, a novel of love, war, and the resilience of one woman’s spirit

England, 1939: Julia Compton has a beautifully well-ordered life. Once a promising pianist, she now has a handsome husband, a young son she adores, and a housekeeper who takes care of her comfortable home. Then, on the eve of war, a film crew arrives in her coastal town. She falls in love.

The consequences are devastating. Penniless, denied access to her son, and completely unequipped to fend for herself, she finds herself adrift in wartime London with her lover, documentary filmmaker Dougie Birdsall. While Dougie seeks truth wherever he can find it, Julia finds herself lost. As the German invasion looms and bombs rain down on the city, she faces a choice-succumb to her fate, or fight to forge a new identity in the heat of war.