1953: An armed uprising in Kenya tears apart the fabric of the country. Marissa Stewart, an American teenager attending a boarding school in the midst of the conflict, sets out to escape the trauma. Her story becomes a hair-raising tale of terror, elopement with author John DuPre, and flight across the face of Africa in search of something just out of reach. Yet she ends up losing everything she holds dear. 2000: Dying and alone in Paris, Marissa asks Charlotte McConnell to write about John's last years of life, which his publisher has requested. However, it quickly becomes her own story. At first reluctant, Charlotte is caught in the drama and her own life is turned upside down.