A courageous young woman struggles to rise above her dirt-poor beginnings and outsmart a Nazi threat on U.S. soil during WWII in this thrilling Southern tale of bravery, love, and forgiveness.

Sedalia, North Carolina, 1943. While war rages overseas, Laurette Lowe faces a more personal battle when she lands a job teaching math at La Porte Academy, a prestigious Black finishing school. Determined to rise above her sharecropping roots, deep family hurt, and the suffocating limits of Jim Crow, Laurette quickly learns that survival and success demand constant vigilance, carefully measuring every step and word to earn her place among the social elite.

A chance encounter with Nev Pierce, a handsome Army lieutenant from nearby Camp Butner, threatens to derail her plans. Though she first dismisses him as an unwelcome distraction, she’s drawn in by his request to decipher a cryptic message passed to him by an Italian POW. What begins as an intellectual puzzle becomes a chilling revelation: details of a Nazi plot to assassinate the U.S. president.

Cracking the cipher, however, only brings a more troubling puzzle. Army officials at the segregated base are unlikely to heed a Black schoolteacher’s warning and Nev could land in serious trouble for involving an unauthorized civilian. With time running out, Laurette and Nev enlist a small circle of allies from the school in a cunning and courageous ploy, boldly risking their futures and lives to stop a deadly threat no one else sees coming.

• Standalone World War II historical fiction by award-winning author Patricia Raybon, featuring a setting inspired by the real Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina

• Perfect for fans of Susan Elia MacNeal, Rhys Bowen, Vanessa Miller, Sarah Sundin and Roseanna M. White

• Includes discussion questions for book clubs