When Ivy Silvergren was ten, her mother disappeared without a trace: Lila Glass, a famous writer in her younger days, celebrated and vilified for her controversial poems. Ivy and her father, a successful writer himself and with a checkered past, have been left with nothing than questions and not even a hint of an answer.

Thirteen years later, Ivy has made a profession out of finding what is lost. Her secret passion lies in rare words - and in the random objects she collects during her walks in New York, inventing stories about how these things got lost and giving them a temporary home.

Her father´s decision to get her mother declared dead in order to remarry comes as a shock to Ivy. Suddenly confronted with reality, she sets out on the trails of her mother, searching for answers - and inevitably for herself.