'In the Shadow of the Lamp' is a fufilling, deeply immersing story of willpower, truth, and the search for everlasting love. In 1854, Molly Fraser, a lowly servant working for an elegant London household, is wrongly accused of thievery. She is quite promptly banished from her claim and nearly thrown out onto the streets. Now, her work and little money gone, she is forced to wander the city in search of a new way of life. So when an opportunity arises for Molly to possibly go to Crimea with a team of Florence Nightingale's nurses, she determinedly sets out for the battlefield. The work there is exasperating, the hospitals are filthy and infested with vermin, and young men lay writhing in pain on the blood-splattered floor. But Molly, refusing to back down, does everything within her power to care for the wounded soldiers. Caring for the young men soon becomes more than just that, though, when Molly finds herself falling deeply in love with one of the doctors working in her hospital. But all transposes when an old love from home comes to fight as a soldier in the war, and seeks out Molly to tell her that he came just to be near her. One man of two will fall prey to the war's deadly guns, and where will that leave Molly? Dunlap carefully winds this story through true friends, deep love, and the acceptance of death as the truth of this story unfolds.