As WWI begins, Lala Hafstein returns home from Berlin carrying a secret within her-something that would outrage her parents, horrify her future mother-in-law Romy and astonish her best friend Paulina. Lala has fallen in love with Josef Smetana-Romy's husband, father of Lala's fiancé Armin, and her father's boss. What she doesn't realize is that they're all concealing secrets, each more shocking than Lala's. Secrets that, when revealed, will forever change their lives. By the time the war enters its third year, the home front has become nearly as perilous as the battlefields. Clever, resourceful and now hard-working, Lala must fight to keep her family from freezing or starving. All the men she loves are gone, and dreams of Josef taunt her. She can't be with him, but can she find a way to live without him?