In the idyllic early summer of 1914, life is good for the de Witt family. German
Rudolf and his aristocratic English wife Verena are planning the wedding of the
ir daughter, Emmeline, while their eldest son Arthur is studying in Paris and Mi
chael is just back from his first term at Cambridge. Celia, the youngest of the
de Witt children, is on the brink of adulthood, and secretly dreams of escaping
her carefully mapped out future and exploring the world.
But with the onslaug
ht of war, the de Witts find themselves in danger of losing everything they hold
dear. As Celia struggles to make sense of the changing world around her, she li
es about her age to join the war effort and finds herself embroiled in a complex
plot that puts her and those she loves in danger. With gripping detail and bril
liant empathy, Kate Williams tells the story of Celia and her family as they are
shunned by a society that previously embraced them, torn apart by sorrow, and b
uffeted and changed by the storms of war.
