France, 1923. The war to end all wars is over and Paris is a Bohemian paradise for foreign artists and writers seduced by the promise of a different life. Pablo Picasso is already famous, the centre of gravity in the Parisian art world. Long, luxurious summers are spent on the Riviera where the beautiful and wealthy descend on the Cote d'Azure, and anything seems possible in the name of art. New York, 1953. For Alana Olson, there's always been something about Picasso. An art historian and aspiring journalist, Alana was bound to encounter the most renowned artist of the era, but it was her late mother's strange fascination with the man that inspired Alana's doctoral thesis on his work.