Dora Welles, an imaginative recent college graduate, is eager to find the excitement she has been dreaming about. Instead, she ends up in snowy upstate New York, volunteering to care for her formidable, reclusive great aunt at a rural estate. As Dora settles into this unexpected role, she begins uncovering her family’s past and learns that her great aunt’s life has been far more eventful than it first appears.