Seventeen year-old Anita is left rootless and tormented by feelings of guilt after a series of traumatic losses. When a letter is discovered amongst her father's papers, she vows to discover the truth about the Irish grandmother she had thought long dead, but her initial search leads nowhere. Eleven years later, against the background of a precarious life as an artist in 1980's London, and the Troubles of Northern Ireland, an unexpected gift finally sets Anita on her quest to unravel family secrets and betrayals. As she uncovers the story of Liza, her maternal grandmother, she comes to understand how unhealed wounds have been passed down through generations of women in her family, echoing with parallels in her own life. She must heal the broken line of her maternal lineage.
