A love story in a time of war. 1861, the first year of the American Civil War. March leaves his beloved wife and daughters to fight for the Northern forces. Alone in a country ripped apart by violence and hatred, he sees things that shake his very soul. He also encounters Grace - a beautiful, educated slave - who had challenged his ideas and changed his life nearly twenty years earlier. From Louisa May Alcott`s beloved classic little women, Geraldine Brooks takes March, the absent father gone to war, and conjures the story of a passionate man struggling not just to return to the heart of his family, but also to keep his faith - in himself, in his fellow man and in love itself.