Kivrin Engle is a promising young historian in 2054 determined to visit her chosen period of expertise: the 14th century. Problem is the Middle Ages have always been deemed too dangerous for direct study by Oxford’s history department, which uses a machine that will send people back only to times and places unlikely to create paradoxes. But Kivrin convinces a colleague to let her go anyway…

What Kivrin discovers is that her training has hardly prepared her for the reality she finds. She’s also not quite when she expected to be. Stranded in what she slowly realizes is the Black Death pandemic, she rises to the occasion as a loving caretaker for the small community she is in. But she knows she can’t stay forever. Meanwhile in 2054, an influenza pandemic hits Oxford, complicating efforts to bring Kivrin home and providing eerie parallels to her circumstances in the past.