The novel takes us into the twilight between nuclear war and an attempt to prevent it. In the shadow, a 'limited' holocaust unfolds, so extensive in consequences, that the past no longer applies. Here a quiet searching begins for what is ultimately real, for something that goes deeper than the conventions. In the contrast with tragedy a multithreaded romance develops that encompasses five families; two Russian, one Canadian, one Japanese, and one American. Their experiences, aspirations, struggles and stories take us on a voyage across fifteen time zones, three contrasting cultures, in a humanist landscape that is constantly changing. Initial involvements with rescue efforts trail out into a chance to build a New World with a new life in Russia. Struggling for justice, the protagonists face new challenges, hidden conspiracies, and ultimately tragedies as they have to flee political persecutions in a small-minded world and start all over again. But each time they start anew, they start from a higher basis with triumphs from the depth of their growing love that becomes ever-brighter. In their unfolding humanity with the demands by love to uplift their marriages to a higher platform that comes to light as natural universal love and brotherhood, the conventional institutions become gradually raised up, though not without a struggle, always reaching forward to the preciously enduring that comes to light as the evermore valid while the artificial axioms fall away. Thus, the nuclear nightmare that starts with a fire brighter than the Sun, rouses a light within that becomes its own brightest star in the heavens.