Ellie Crowther is fourteen and living in a hostel where her mother, a single parent, is a matron. There is much she doesn't understand about men and love and sex, especially. She begins her journey into adulthood aware of its disappointments but also finding passion - and enough love - to sustain and enrich her in unexpected ways. Ellie grows up to be a spirited, original and forthright woman who becomes a well-known painter but her canvasses are haunted by the presence of a figure from her past she thinks of as her shadow man.