In 1917 Boston, Sculptress Emma Lewis Swan worries for her surgeon husband, Tom, who has gone to France to help put together soldiers injured during what will come to be known as the Great War. Emma, whose work has been dismissed by critics because she’s a female, finds her true calling the day she sees a disfigured soldier on the streets of Boston. She becomes determined to make masks for these brave young men to try to restore a sense normalcy to their war torn lives. She journeys to Paris to learn and employ her skill, knowing that in doing so, she will also leave temptation, in the form of Linton Bower, behind. This is a fascinating account of the men who returned from the First World War, damaged and disfigured and the attempts they made to settle back into normalcy