Book one in 'The Forty-Eighters' series.

In a home divided by grief, a dangerous rebellion is being written in the dark.

The Grand Duchy of Baden. By coincidence or fate, the first time Bernhard Zimmer reads an editorial by Frank Huck, it is 1 March 1848—the fifth anniversary of his first wife’s death. The day she died, Bernhard’s heart forged the shackles, and his mind hid the key to an invisible prison of grief. Yet, with the graveyard dirt still fresh and his children’s cheeks still wet with tears, he shed his mourning suit to wed the children’s nanny, Franziska Rubel. He needed a helpmate. 

Unbeknownst to Bernhard, Franziska needed an alibi. 

For five years, husband and wife have shared a single bedchamber separated by a thin, makeshift wall, but when the state’s socio-economic unrest lands on Bernhard’s doorstep, the thin wall inside his home fractures. As rumors of an impending French invasion spread like wildfire, the radical editorialist known as Frank Huck encourages a working-class uprising. To protect his children, Bernhard, a conservative middle-class merchant, must overcome his fear of loss and step into the shadows of a daring campaign before the monarchy uncovers the treason being written under his own roof.