Tooly Zylberberg, owner of a bookshop in the Welsh countryside, spends most of her life reading. Yet there's one tale that never made sense: her own life. In childhood she was spirited away from home, then raised in Asia, Europe and the United States. But who were the people who brought her up? And what happened to them? There was Humphrey, a curmudgeon from Russia; there was the charming but tempestuous Sarah, who hailed from Kenya; and there was Venn, the charismatic leader who transformed Tooly forever - until, quite suddenly, he vanished. Years later, as the old mysteries resurface, Tooly embarks upon a journey that spans continents and decades: from Wales to Bangkok to New York to Italy, and from the end of the Cold War to the digital revolution of today.