1. At the start of the novel, Emmie Van Alden says of the Smith College Relief Unit, “We’re not looking for glory. Just to do something decent and worthwhile.” Do you think she --- and her fellow alumnae --- would have gone if they had realized just how difficult and dangerous the work would be? Would you have answered the call the way they did?

2. Kate and Emmie both have fraught relationships with their mothers. Emmie’s mother is “the niece of a senator and the second cousin of a former president” and a major power broker in New York society. Kate’s mother is an Irish domestic worker. How do Kate and Emmie deliberately choose different paths from their mothers’? How does their wartime experience affect the way they perceive their mothers --- and themselves?

3. Kate reflects: “The difference was, in college, she had really thought she was just like everyone else, that being secretary of the literary society and volunteering with the dramatic society washed out all the differences, made her one of them.” Did an elite education truly turn out to be an equalizer of social class? Does a working-class immigrant background still carry a stigma in certain corners of American society the way it did in the early 20th century?

4. How did being female make the women’s relief work in France more challenging? Were there ways they could use their gender to their advantage?

5. When Kate first realizes that Dr. Stapleton had sexually assaulted Julia, she is surprised: “It was the unprotected women who got taken advantage of. The maids and the shopgirls. Not the Julias of the world.” Why didn’t Julia’s privilege protect her from Dr. Stapleton? How do Kate and the other women find ways to keep themselves safe once they know that he’s a predator?

6. Is Kate right to be furious when she realizes that Emmie has paid her way? How would you have reacted? What did you make of Emmie’s response when Kate finally confronts her? Was Emmie acting purely out of generosity?

7. Did your opinion of Julia change as she reveals her true circumstances --- disowned and penniless after refusing to marry for money as her mother wanted? Were you as surprised as Kate?

8. What do you think the future holds for the characters in this book after the story ends? How do you imagine their lives continuing in the years after World War I?