Karen Shepard's captivating debut novel captures the reunion of photographer Celine Arneaux, a French-Chinese émigré, her disaffected Asian-American daughter, Sumin, and granddaughter, Cameron, at a family cabin in Virginia. The cabin is where, a decade earlier, Celine had photographed Cameron for a famous series of child portraits. Joining them for a week in the country on the occasion of Celine's 75th birthday are two outsiders: Sumin's lover Grady, a journalist who is writing a profile of Celine; and Alice, an appealing and poised six-year-old Chinese girl temporarily entrusted to Cameron.