Christian and his younger sister Emma, children of a wealthy but spectacularly ill-matched couple, had been brought up by their mother Flavia in the hope that one of them, at least, would find a vocation to the religious life. Their father Ludovic, meanwhile, was absent from their lives for a great deal of the time - an absence which, as they grew up, became all too readily understandable. But while Christian lived in London and Gloucestershire with his wife Phoebe and their two small children - a shamefully irreligious life, according to Flavia - Emma followed her heart's desire by training to be a fresco painter in Italy and then, bowing to the incessant pressure from her mother, became a nun in an enclosed order.

A tragedy in the family brought them all to crisis point. Flavia fell apart, becoming increasingly and fanatically religious. Phoebe and Christian had to rebuild their family life, while Emma became gloriously, unexpectedly free - finding love of a more earthly kind in the glorious countryside of Provence.