Learning in early adolescence that the debonair bootlegger-cum-innkeeper is not her biological father, Mia's precocious daughter develops a fierce self-reliance. In the midst of the apprehension and controversy simmering in prewar America, Josie studies to be a nurse and becomes romantically involved, first with a disillusioned cowboy veteran of foreign battlefields, and then with a cultivated refugee surgeon obligated elsewhere. An army nurse remaining in Europe after World War II, Josie breaks a powerful taboo with a biracial expatriate writer in the exhilarating ambience of postwar Paris. Returning to America in the complacency of the late 1950s, she boldly combines marriage and motherhood with medical school. A decade later, Josie's family is unraveling as cultural explosions are transforming America. She strives for the strength to assume a significant role in an emergent women's movement while her marriage hangs in the balance.

Author Biography

Judith Slawson King is the author of Robert Duvall: Hollywood Maverick (St. Martin's Press), Legal Affairs (Pocket Books) and The Second Wedding Handbook (Doubleday). She currently makes her home in Colorado's Roaring Fork Valley.