Trussoni believed she controlled the narration of her life. But from their first kiss she was spellbound by Nikolai, a novelist from Bulgaria, sharing a love of jazz and books and travel, passions that intensify their whirlwind romance. Eight years later, hopeful to renew their marriage, they move to the south of France, to a picturesque medieval village in the Languedoc, where they buy a thirteenth-century stone fortress. It is here she finds the strength to overcome her illusions, and start again.