Celia Pippet, founder of a feminist magazine, impulsively steals a bizarre artifact from the British Museum. Joined by her friend Martin, a filmmaker, and American academic Tamara, she flees to Bez in southern France to escape detection and to pursue the trail of the beguiling Adèle. Fifty years before, Adèle had been rescued from Bez by Dr. Jonas Sylvester. He brought her to Paris where she captured the city's attention with her alluring beauty and air of secrecy. When Sylvester brings over sister Blanche to look after Adèle, he is not prepared for the love between them nor their escape from him. He takes his revenge. Moving between Blanche's life with Adèle and Celia's search for clues into that life, the stories converge in Bez where the three friends discover Blanche's existence and Adèle's true, if unbelievable, identity. The effects of the revelation are shattering—Adèle's erotic power extends beyond the grave, melding past and present into a single reality. A provocative and original novel by an accomplished literary writer who steps beyond the boundaries of what we know as male and female.

Mary Flanagan is the author of Bad Girls, Trust, and The Blue Woman. An American, she lives in London.