Motherless since she was six, Cosette has long let curiosity and independence take her in her own direction. But the flood last summer and strains on friendships that followed left her doubting. Now, about to turn fourteen, she discovers a clue that will let her follow her mother's footsteps to her family in France. But is she really prepared for all that an adventure abroad may entail? Cosette travels to Provence and stays at the very home where her mother summered as a teen. Traveling with her relatives, she finds lifestyles in France very different than in her hometown in rural Pennsylvania. The beauty of the countryside and villa and daily activity of a working vineyard and wine cellar inspire her drawing and painting as never before. In her discoveries of the mountainous retreat, though, she also finds lingering hatred from the war and family feuds. Attacked and left for dead, she survives. Now she must find a way to go on just as she did after cancer took her mother and flooding took her home.