Rather than publish his novel in any traditional way, best-selling novelist Todd Babiak has minted one copy of his latest book.

This is the only copy.

"The Daughters of Walsingham" is about a girl from the coldest town in America who receives an invitation to study at the Walsingham Academy in the South of France.

It is 1962.

The invitation explains much that was strange about Gwendolyn Spire's childhood. Foreign languages, tracking, self-defence. This is what her mysterious father has prepared her to do. But when she arrives at the academy, Gwendolyn is unlike the others: wealthy and privileged girls from around the world.

The studies are difficult and dangerous, but she learns to navigate them with her Chinese roommate and two other misfit friends from Holland and Australia.

Everything changes when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupts far from the South of France. A recruiter arrives. There is a competition at the academy for two girls to go and help. The winners must understand: there is a good chance they will not survive this mission.

As the world falls apart, Gwendolyn secretly works behind the scenes in Moscow and Washington D.C. to try to put it all back together again.