Dorothy "Dee" Gale is searching for a place to belong. After their globe-trotting mother's death, Dee and her sister Toni settled with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in Kansas, where Dee attends graduate school. But when Dee's relationship with a faculty member, a bestselling novelist, ends in heartbreak and humiliation, she's caught in a tornado of negative publicity. Unable to face her colleagues--or her former lover--Dee applies to the writing program at Trinity College Dublin.

Dee's journey to Ireland leads her to new companions: seemingly brainless Sam Clery--who dropped out of college and now runs a newsagent's shop--is charming and hot, in a dissolute, Irish poet kind of way; allegedly heartless Tim Woodman--who stiffly refused to take back his ex-fiancée--seems stuck in his past; and fiercely loyal Reeti Kaur, who longs for the courage to tell her parents she wants to teach underprivileged girls rather than work in the family business.

In a year of opportunities and changes, love and loss, Dee is mentored by powerful women in the writing program, challenging her to see herself and her work with new eyes. With her friends, Dee finds the confidence to confront her biggest fears--including her intimidating graduate advisor, who may not be so wicked after all.

Faced with a choice with far-reaching consequences, Dee must apply the lessons she's learned along the way about making a family, finding a home...and recognizing the power that's been inside her all along.