Vivienne Bastain’s life is an emotional roller-coaster ride, taking her from San Francisco to Paris to New York, with one constant: her mother Denise who is psychopathically needy for a love that will not leave her. This need escalates to dangerous duplicity, destroying her daughter’s sense of self, making her easy prey for manipulation and betrayal by others. Vivienne becomes world-famous as a costume jewelry designer, and along the way are men who warp the concept of love and a woman who does the same with friendship. There is only one man, Jack, whose love for Vivienne is as true as the feelings of the others are false. And always there is her mother, Denise, plotting to take back what she believes is her possession and no one else’s: her daughter.
Here is a story about secrets, about lies, about family. Most of all, this is a story about love, defined differently by those who feel it and those who use it.