This is the journal of Eugenie Vye: the prettiest debutante of the 1890 season, with hair she can sit on and a 17-inch waist - yet somehow three years later, still unmarried. Lord Vye's daughter might be thought to want for nothing, but life isn't easy on 50 guineas a year with a jealous stepmother watching one's every move. Eugenie's passionate nature and unerring ability to get hold of the wrong end of the stick land her in trouble as she follows her heart: from elegant Swallowcliffe to the streets of fashionable London, by way of rural Ireland, glamorous belle ?poque Paris and an idyllic artists' retreat at Giverny.

She hurtles from one near-disaster to another, rescued only by a sense of humor, unquenchable optimism and her dear American friend Julia - until finally discovering love was right under her nose all along.