With the Great War finally at an end, life must go on for those who have survived. Charlotte Brown witnessed the devastation war wrought as a nurse, but after the war she decides to resume her career as a social worker in Liverpool. There she helps others to better their lives, even as she struggles to forge a future of her own. Charlotte is fortunate to have friends old and new to guide her, including the women at her boarding house, her colleagues, and a radical young newspaper editor with romantic hopes.

But a chance encounter with Edward, her dearest friend’s brother, pulls Charlotte back into the past. Once charming and infuriatingly arrogant, the new Earl of Cumberland has become another casualty of the war. Still, Charlotte sees the specter of the captivating man he once was, and she knows he could offer her a life far different from the one she has now. But being the wife of aristocrat comes with a price the independent young woman can’t bear to pay.

As the country seethes with unrest, and post-war euphoria flattens into bitter disappointment, Charlotte must make an impossible choice: keep her freedom, or turn her back on the only man she has ever loved