On the coast of Antibes, Sara Wiborg and Gerald Murphy built Villa America, a fragrant paradise where they invented summer on the Riviera for a group of bohemian artists and writers who became deeply entwined in each other's affairs. It was a charmed life, but these were people who kept secrets and were heartbreakingly human. When a tragic accident brings Owen, a young American aviator who fought in the Great War, to the south of France, he finds himself drawn into this flamboyant circle, and the Murphys find their world irrevocably and unexpectedly transformed.

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sun-bleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha's Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. However, after the Second World War, their lives start to crack. When Helena's children discover the victim of a brutal murder, it causes everyone's lives to unravel.