Lives pivot on small moments, but which way they pivot is up to the person. Jane Marlow's second book in her moving Petrovo Series is a powerful story of war told in intimate, human terms that will enthrall both male and female audiences. Andrey enters his final year of medical studies in 1854 with an empty belly, empty pockets, and secondhand clothes hanging together by wishful thinking. When Russia blunders into the misbegotten Crimean War, Tsar Nicholas recruits medical students to the front, and Andrey grabs at this flash of good luck. But his sanity is soon tested as he is forced to witness the most senseless and utter disregard for human life imaginable—where the death of a man holds no more significance than the death of a beetle. Andrey fears he is slowly becoming unhinged by the sound and feel of the relentless rasp of his saw against the mangled limbs of soldiers who have had no anesthesia. ​Eventually the guns stop firing, and the ink dries on the peace treaty, but the madness of war doesn’t end for Andrey. Can he stop seeking solace from the vodka bottle? Can he cease being a black well of bottomless cynicism? Can he begin to trust the woman who longs to walk beside him on his journey?