Journalist Kate leaves New York for a fresh start in California and a new job: as an archivist for the estate of late famed photographer Miranda Brand. Miranda's son, Theo, has returned to the family home and needs Kate to organise his mother's work and the mess of her personal effects. The further Kate digs into the material, the more a picture begins to emerge of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood and marriage. But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Miranda's diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession.