When 17-year-old Juliet Dufresne receives a cryptic letter from her enlisted older brother pleading for help, and then finds out he's been reported missing overseas, she lies about her age and volunteers as an army nurse to find him. Shy and awkward, Juliet is thrust into the bloody chaos of a field hospital, living in a sprawling encampment north of Rome. Christopher Barnaby, a deserter awaiting court martial, may hold the answer to her brother's fate - but the trauma of war has left him unable to speak.