Orphaned at eight years of age , Kitty Conway is dispatched to live with relatives she has never met . In the heart of rural Oxfordshire she discovers the idyllic family life she has always longed for - falling beneath the spell of her lively cousins . And none more than the handsome Jack , with his beguiling , free spirited ways . But as the years of innocence fade , the relentless changes sweeping Europe take their toll . Bonds of kinship they thought would hold forever begin to disintegrate as the outbreak of war scatters Kitty's loved ones across the continent . Out to prove herself in a world turned hostile , Kitty embarks on a mission that will take her from London to occupied Paris , to the ravaged decadence of war torn Berlin . ... for it is only by fighting at last for her independence that Kitty can unite a family threatened forever by the destruction of war ... ...