Maeve Fanning is a first generation Irish immigrant, born and raised among the poor, industrious Italian families of Boston's North End by her widowed mother. Maeve also has a dangerous fondness for strange men and bootleg gin--a rebellious appetite that soon finds her spiraling downward, leading a double life. When the strain proves too much, Maeve becomes an unwilling patient in a psychiatric hospital, where she strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic young woman. Once out, Maeve faces starting over again. Armed with a bottle of bleach and a few white lies, she lands a job at an eccentric antiques shop catering to Boston's wealthiest and most peculiar collectors. While delivering a purchase to the wealthy Van der Laar family, Maeve is introduced to beautiful socialite Diana Van der Laar--only to discover she's the young woman from the hospital. Reunited with the charming but increasingly unstable Diana and pursued by her attractive brother James, Maeve becomes more and more entwined with the Van der Laar family--a connection that pulls her into a world of moral ambiguity and deceit, and ultimately betrayal.