'That's enough,' she told herself, her hairbrush poised in mid air. 'Stop thinking about the past.' About France: about the parties and the money, about her mother's lovers, and most of all about her mother's long and terrifying downward spiral into addiction, paralysis and death. …

Phoebe Presswood is seventeen. Newly arrived in her native country to live with her father, whom she has not seen for nine years, she is struggling with the damage inflicted by her upbringing on the Côte d'Azur.

Her character is exemplary, and in her cousin Howard she finds an ally to her cause: but can these be enough to let her overcome her past and find happiness and her place in the world?