After her mother dies in childbirth, Madeleine is left to bring up her younger sister in a remote cottage on the west coast of Scotland. Tainted by the discovery that she is illegitimate, Madeleine is plunged into poverty in London before desperately marrying a wealthy cousin of her father's, who does not know her true identity. And thus she comes to live at the old family estate of Eden in the hills of Jamaica often talked about by her mother-a beautiful, decaying house with its overgrown garden, lush sugar plantation, and myriads of secrets.