A rousingly romantic Mediterranean novel of love and war. World War II has just ended, and Colonel Carlo Terzo, a brilliant military strategist, retires to Sicily with his beautiful Russian wife Emma. There he spends long afternoons tutoring two young lovers - Salvatore, a poet, and the feisty, aristocratic Fiore. But the Terzo household becomes caught in a standoff between rebel peasants and the murderous private army of Fiore's malicious mother. Will Carlo finally be given the chance to measure his learning on a real battlefield?