At a young age Pamela Sims is taken from her humble home in England to the French court, where she is brought up on a life of luxury as the illegitimate daughter of the beautiful Madame de Genlis. Recounted through the voices of the woman who was to become known as La Belle Pamela and her daughter, this novel vividly tells how her past shaped their extraordinary lives, capturing the atmosphere of eighteenth-century France and the complexity of a world where your origins create your identity.