Celestine a Novel is the tale of two young lovers in the bustling military city of Townsville at the height of the Vietnam war. First there’s the French girl, charming, witty Celestine Benoir from the off-beat Bistro Paradis, and then there’s Nick Finlay, an ambitious local newspaper reporter.

But their idyllic love haven is shattered when the president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson makes a surprise stopover there at the end of his 1966 Australian visit.

National security agents close in as dark secrets from Celestine’s past emerge to put the lovers’ lives at risk and threaten to tear them apart.