After the death of her mother, Jessie discovers her old diary, written in 1998 during a traumatic three weeks of captivity, having being kidnapped by Corsican nationalists. Twenty-two years later, she decides to return to the island, to face the memories that continue to plague her and to lay any remaining ghosts.


She travels to a mountain village above the bay of Calvi. Before setting out to discover the whereabouts of the remote farm where she was held, she takes time to explore the landscape and enjoy a much-needed holiday in this wildly beautiful place.


But on the evening of the local Olive Festival, she is brought face to face with the past in the shape of the youngest brother of the family who once held her captive, the boy she fancied and the decoy who lured her into captivity. As she is forced to confront the trauma of that experience, her feelings for him are rekindled, drawing her deeper and deeper into an intense, clandestine love affair that threatens them both with most dangerous consequences.