This is the life story of a German girl growing up in Germany during Hitler's regime. She spent the night of her fifteenth birthday huddled in the basement with her family as her home town of Augsburg suffered its largest air raid of the war, during the coldest night of that year. Life was very interesting for the teenager after the war ended and the American troops entered the city, bringing with them the Big Band Sound. Five years after the war, she met and married an American soldier. Moving to America was just the beginning of many different experiences that awaited her. When the couple had four children, aged thirteen, twelve, nine, and six, they left the U.S. to embark on an eleven-month, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Africa, the Canary Islands, and Europe. Four years after their return to the U.S., they moved to California, where they remain to this day. Sadly, a few years later, tragedy struck the family. The book ends 60 years later on Maya's 75th birthday.