London, March 1927. One of the most significant figures of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painters, Maria Spartali, recalling her life a few days before her death, is encouraged by her ancestor Bella Stillman and a young Greek refugee. The Victorian era and the Belle Époque, the puritanical world of New England where her husband was raised, American journalist and diplomat William Stillman, the expatriate Greek community in Britain, Italy, and 19th-century Greece come to life and are vividly portrayed through the emotional fluctuations of the characters, their artistic pursuits, and major events of the period, such as the Cretan Revolution and the struggles of the Balkan peoples.

A novel about memory, history, and the power of art to withstand decay. About temptation and the tragic mystery of the world. About a couple who faced harsh trials, but endured and left behind a rare example of nonconformity, creation, and devotion.