The tense and emotional saga of one resilient young woman’s survival in the lawlessness of post-Libération France, by the New York Times bestselling author of the Aimée Leduc series

August, 1945: Badly traumatized by the last few months of Nazi occupation, orphaned, and pregnant through a story too painful and dangerous to tell, seventeen-year-old Huguette Faure seeks refuge at a convent. Her father, before he was killed by vigilantes, made powerful enemies, and Huguette has a target on her back. But not even when her baby is born does she find peace—and after narrowly avoiding jail time thanks to the kindness of a Parisian police officer, though she feels ready to give up, she instead decides to try for one last chance for a new life. She cashes in one of her father’s IOUs at a film studio on the outskirts of Paris, where she gets a job assisting a legendary film director. Once she goes from helping him with chores to cooking his books, she sees an opportunity to change her fortunes—and to break free from the ghosts of her past once and for all.

Over the next few years of Huguette’s life, she goes from the black market to the film industry, from Paris to Lyon, from child to woman. National and New York Times bestseller Cara Black has been an expert in all things France for decades; now, in her most expansive, emotional work yet, she uses the vessel of Huguette, this enterprising and complex young heroine, to immerse readers in the harsh reality of life after Libération.