Obsession is another word for hope. Philadelphia, 1793: As yellow fever empties the city, fearful, young Janet Watters lives at the mercy of others, comforted by her secret love for Kit DeWaere, a rector’s son who believes that doing little or nothing to help people would be an abuse of God’s trust in humanity. Kit’s sometimes-rash acts of service earn him a position as vicar to a covert Episcopal mission in late Revolutionary Paris. It’s a dangerous time to be religious or American in France, which has banned Christianity and is at war with the United States. And it’s a dangerous time for Janet to be reunited with Kit when her father brings her to Paris to work at the mission. Kit’s sense of justice––and his marriage to a mercurial French émigrée––lead to an illusion that will change the nation and drive Janet from the boy of her dreams to the man of her heart.
