The postwar peace in London during the early 1960s is an uneasy one. Physical and psychological remnants of WWII's destruction are evident, while concerns about the growing international nuclear threat escalates. For Celia Duchesne, the two phenomena collide in a personal life that for the naive young bookshop clerk was as much about new beginnings as it was about an unsettled past. When Celia learns of a sister who died in a Nazi concentration camp, she questions everything about her oppressive upbringing by two emotionally distant parents. Encouraged by her best friend, Daphne, Celia investigates her sister's perplexing past while joining Daphne in London's emerging anti-nuke protest movement. The sudden romantic attentions of Septimus Nelson, a dashing American diplomat, further complicate Celia's reconciliation of a family scandal mired in British spy operations with an uncertain future reliant on equally secretive back channel negotiations. Based on actual events that occurred during the global missile crisis of October 1962, Fein's historical novel examines this pivotal era through an intensely personal lens.