While spending summer vacation with her family on the idyllic southeast coast of Brazil, fourteen-year-old Filipa discovers that her father, a famous author, is betraying her mother by dallying with a beautiful young American woman. Wrestling with the truth, Filipa will soon discover that her father's infidelity is only the first of many dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of her seemingly perfect family.

A restless retired woman teams up with her deceased neighbor's maid to seek out a man who has a secret connection to her past life as a farm owner at the foothill of Mount Tabu in Africa.