In 1918, Germany transfers troops from the east and launches a massive offensive before American strength can be fully deployed. Bertie struggles to bring his battered battalion through the retreat, Jack is reported shot down, and Jessie carries Bertie’s child while anticipating her family’s judgment. At Morland Place, Teddy employs German prisoners of war despite local hostility.
The family’s danger extends to Russia, where Thomas and the imprisoned Romanovs face the revolutionary regime. The title’s fallen kings are both monarchs and the individual men who are central to someone’s private world. As the war approaches its end, compassion toward enemies, faith in absent loved ones and the ability to forgive become the only means by which the Morlands can endure until the Armistice.
