In the dark stretch of World War II, ambitious student and newlywed Adrienne Kennedy is asked to give up everything she’d planned for her future—her degree, her home, even her name—when her husband Joe is recruited for a top-secret wartime mission in the New Mexico desert. Here, Adrienne follows him into an isolated world of aliases and aggressive, barb-wired silence.
Cut off from everyone she loves, Adrienne must navigate a strange new life among brilliant scientists, military guards, and the wives who keep the hidden community running. As secrecy tightens around her marriage and the war presses in from afar, and as one belligerent captain begins suspecting her of sabotage, she questions what sacrifice truly means—and how much of herself she can surrender before she disappears entirely.
Gone Away is a moving novel of love, ambition, and resilience set inside one of history’s most secret, consequential places, where the cost of changing the world is measured not only in scientific breakthroughs, but in the quiet losses carried by those left waiting in the margins.
Cut off from everyone she loves, Adrienne must navigate a strange new life among brilliant scientists, military guards, and the wives who keep the hidden community running. As secrecy tightens around her marriage and the war presses in from afar, and as one belligerent captain begins suspecting her of sabotage, she questions what sacrifice truly means—and how much of herself she can surrender before she disappears entirely.
Gone Away is a moving novel of love, ambition, and resilience set inside one of history’s most secret, consequential places, where the cost of changing the world is measured not only in scientific breakthroughs, but in the quiet losses carried by those left waiting in the margins.
- WWII Historical Fiction: Based on the remarkable true story of Adrienne and Joseph Kennedy during the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos with armed guards, censored mail, and suffocating secrecy.
Secret City: Women behind history in a secret city beginning in a wartime lab and echoing through a lifetime of love and loss.
Moral Weight: A portrait of trust, loyalty, and duty, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah, Kate Quinn, and Erika Robuck.
Discussion questions: Includes discussion questions for reading groups.
Genre: Historical