At seventeen, Annie Hope Brown is a woman in 1859 when she conspires against the US government with her infamous father, John Brown, and his Kansas Raiders. These men are anti-slavery forces Annie helps prepare to pull off the first home-grown terrorist attack in the US. The attack on the US Armory at Harpers Ferry as seen through the eyes of a love-struck, idealist young lady who abhors slavery and falls in love with her father's right hand man, John Kagi. Annie's quest to see Kagi one last time before the dangerous raid is enabled by a spy for the government, a green Pinkerton agent recruit named Wesley Lane whose mission is to assassinate Annie's father as Brown has become a liability to men at the highest levels of government since the war in Bleeding Kansas.

The tables are turned topsy-turvy, however, when Wes Lane and Annie Brown travel from Pennsylvania to Virginia together (as they are at cross purposes with one another - and are both lying to one another). Their lives become even more complicated by their growing feelings for one another as they face the obstacles before them. A sweeping epic love story and historical thriller with the clock ticking out of control, sounds like a western, this is the first in the series. It takes time to win or lose a war, and besides, the novel is layered, honest, and unflinching.