Francesca Reece tells of youth and aging, of love and power in the French artistic milieu. As an assistant to the famous writer Michael, Leah spends the summer in a villa on the coast of southern France. There she is supposed to organize the diaries of his youth. Picturesque mornings on the beach, wine, good food, cultivated conversations. Leah enjoys the carefree rhythm of bohemian life and the illustrious company in the summer villa. But Michael's diaries of his debauchery in Soho in the 60s and the crisis-ridden Athens of the 70s reveal increasingly darker sides of the writer, and soon Leah stumbles upon a secret that is closely interwoven with herself.