Eight-year-old Delah makes a shocking discovery: her father isn’t whom she thinks he is. In postwar England, single mothers are treated as outliers. With only an old, faded photo and a name one L.H.J. Harper, an American G.I. — Delah, now an impoverished teenager, sets out on a global quest to find a lost love. At stake is a mother’s heart.

Braided into her search are both opportunities and challenges she has to overcome. An English aristocrat guides her through her first innocent years in London, a Spanish concert pianist plays with her heart, a flirtatious Indian Maharajah offers the seduction of an elephant safari, and a renowned Parisian couturier takes her under his wing.

But darker forces threaten and even jeopardize her life, as a Bedouin Tribal leader in Kuwait bargains his camels for her; a rumored French spy pulls her into his dangerous world in Australia, and when a million-dollar ransom is placed on her head, a gun-toting bodyguard is hired. All before a young American with a talent for hunting serendipitously appears, drawing Delah to America after he successfully locates her father and arranges a reunion in Memphis, Tennessee. This encounter unveils some simple universal truths, and what she finds… is the last thing she expects.