The year is 1862. Desdemona is an unconventional young lady who wants to aid the Union cause. Despite ineligibility due to her age and her family's disapproval, she volunteers as a nurse at Armory Square Hospital. On her first day, she finds her ward bombarded with an onslaught of wounded men. A large battle just took place--what would come to be known as the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War--and the casualties are pouring in.
Warren Cleary fought in that battle. He wakes up suffocated behind a shroud of bandages. It isn't until he meets the ward nurse, Miss Kensington, that he discovers how severe his injuries truly are and the small detail that he's a now a Rebel prisoner in a Yankee hospital. Stripped of all vanity and independence, Warren must learn to cope with his life-shattering afflictions and the death of the friend he'd been trying to save.
Mona tries to endure the trials of discrimination and hospital horrors, in addition to accepting the courtship of her ward surgeon, Dr. Nathan Angle. Warren teeters between wanting to live as a damaged man or die. As the two try to survive a war pitting Americans against each other, they face betrayals and death and budding feelings between them that throw all into discord. They've got to choose whether to navigate through their broken worlds together or apart and decide if they can live with the consequences.
State of Ruin brings to light common obstacles faced during the Civil War's times of turmoil and devastation. It speaks to what true love is worth, even smothered beneath the tension of a country coming apart at the seams. It speaks to hope and shatters the facade of painted faces and American-Victorian propriety. It is proof that an ending worth having is never without its tribulations but always worth them.