The only child of two famous but self-absorbed artists, Zelda Steele is adopted by her parent's patrons when she is just a baby. Great things are expected of this privileged young woman, but at twenty-seven Zelda is dead, leaving two young children and a body of work that only hints at her promise. Decades later, Zelda's daughter Ruth returns to her childhood home to find the diaries her mother is rumoured to have kept. What they reveal takes her on a journey into the her mother's, her grandmothers and, ultimately, her own.