Piers Paul Read's most successful work of fiction to date was an historical novel set during the Second World War, The Free Frenchman. This new novel, in a similar vein, is a love story set in England, France and Russia, played out against the turbulent backdrop of the First World War. Full of moral and emotional conflict, this is the story of a strong, independent-minded woman caught between two men, and of lovers forced apart by their different social backgrounds and the terrible circumstances of war.