Misadventure awaits a capricious college grad when she volunteers to care for her formidable aunt.

After speeding through college, Dora finds herself back at home, unemployed, and scheming to travel abroad with a wealthy friend.  But when financial reality and her distressingly practical mother keep Dora grounded in frigid New Jersey, her only apparent option is to take the Law School Aptitude Test and resign herself to several more years of mind-numbing studies.

Opportunity knocks when Dora’s Great Aunt Vera breaks her foot, and Dora seizes upon the misfortune as an excuse to step out from under her mother’s thumb.  Yet not even Dora’s vivid imagination can foresee what awaits her at Vera’s rural estate.

The wealthy widow of a famed journalist and author, Vera has lived independently and in semi-seclusion for decades.  Depressed by her recent immobility and displeased to require caregiving of any sort, she is anything but gracious to Dora, who Vera perceives to be lacking in both passion and direction.

Unable to brighten her Aunt’s mood and bored with her LSAT prep book, Dora escapes into Vera’s journals, which she discovers hidden away in a closet. As secrets are unearthed and new acquaintances are made, Dora’s life turns around – or does she do the turning herself?