Cassie is a young student at a Washington University dealing with issues of love and loss in her life. While working on a research paper about President Lincoln, the self-made man, she stumbles upon a legend about him. The myth concerns a beautiful young woman who he met and fell in love with at the tender age of 21 during his stay in a small Illinois village in the early 1830s.

Researching the legend, Cassie discovers her own unbreakable connection to it and to him, and finds that she must journey back in time to face its potential implications for her future, his past and for a young, struggling nation at the brink of war. Along the way, she learns the unshakable truth that it is our losses that ultimately define us and that love has the power to transform us all.