Jacqueline is planning her wedding to her darling Christopher, but then the war comes. While he is at war, Jacqueline stays with her sister Mary, helping to care for her nieces and baby nephew. After the war is over, Mary needs Jacqueline more than ever. Christopher wants to be married at once, but Jacqueline feels that she must do her duty to her sister and nieces and nephew, so they agree to lengthen their engagement while Christopher goes to India on business. But can their love remain constant through all this time?

The writing is really dramatic! Everybody is either suffering utter misery or ecstatic with wild joy. The characters are all really emotional and they go through all these awful situations. The aftermath of the war has changed them and now they have to deal with the realities of life. It was a bit depressing in the middle, but worth all the suffering to reach a happy ending.

I liked Jacqueline's character, but I also got really annoyed with her for making her fiancé wait so long. She's a martyr to her family, and I wish that she had taken more definitive action to secure her own happiness. But it fits with her personality. She's completely unselfish, always putting others first, and she has a very high sense of honor and duty that would not allow her to turn her back on her sister's need. I admire that self-sacrifice at the same time that it frustrates me plot-wise.

I really enjoyed how the story explores all these different relationships in this family and analyzes why the behave certain ways and how they relate to each other. There are a lot of different layers in these relationships. Jacqueline and her fiancé Christopher have a very spiritual love that binds them together no matter how many miles may be between them. We explore Jacqueline's motherly relationship with her nieces and nephew as they grow up. We analyze the extremely close bond between Jacqueline and her sister Mary; they are so empathetic that they feel each other's pain. And then Jacqueline has to deal with the high-handed commands of her brother-in-law. It's fascinating to see this group of people interacting, and under the surface are all these layers of emotion.