This is, first and foremost, a coming-of-age love story. Add a dash of global thriller, a tablespoon of revenge, and a pinch of magical realism and the end result is a "Tears in the Mist" souffle, baked to perfection. Their souls touched one another at an early age. Akiko and Conner held each other's hands as children. They were destined to hold each other's hearts as adults. He struggled his entire life to find answers. She was a free spirit whose gift to the world was her singing and her dancing. It was a stormy, cloud-drenched day when Lady Fate ruthlessly intervened to wrench their mutual love from each other's grasp. Fifteen-year-old Akiko was brutally assaulted by a gang of older students as Conner tried, and failed, to save her. Caught at the crossroads between tragedy and heartbreak, the tunnel ahead was dark and cold for both souls. Both were forced to travel the breadth and depth of this unforgiving world, separate and alone. They had memories of what once was and dreams of what could be, but they also knew that time and circumstances were fatally conspiring against them. Akiko and her best friends succeeded in their efforts to become international singing sensations. Conner looked for answers alongside his best friends in the Peace Corps and a tour of duty with the Army Ranger elite. On a visit home, he exacts his revenge on the men who murdered his parents and the man who led the assault on his beautiful Akiko so many years before. Recruited by the CIA, he joins the agency for one last mission to save hundreds of lives, including his only love, from a midnight terrorist strike in Paris. This fateful evening decides their ultimate destinies. Their lives, and the lives of many other innocents, all hang in the balance. Would their implacable love for each other give them the strength to endure? Would Lady Fate look down from her heavenly perch and grant them the love they so passionately needed and desperately deserved? Given a second chance, could Conner save his beloved Akiko, or would it be too late?