Eighteen-year-old pencil artist Elizabeth Rhodes is on the cusp of a breakthrough art commission that could cement her future career: the debut of her drawings at L'étoile dans les Ténèbres, the social calendar's biggest art auction hosted by renowned art collector and gracious philanthropist Madame Penelope Garcon.

Concealing her true identity as the mysterious artist Briar Rose-whose name and fame she inherited at the deathbed request of her beloved Aunt-Elizabeth decides to accept the terms her dapper and elderly benefactor Sterling Figgleston negotiates for the debut of Briar Rose's new series, Hearts.

Secretly drawing a masterpiece while masquerading as an assistant, Elizabeth is required to help with planning and running the auction and must accompany Madame Garcon's nephew-the handsome and maddening Lincoln Garcon-to the soirée.

When the mental illness she's been hiding threatens to expose her charade to the boy she's loved since childhood, and with her estranged parents slated to make an appearance at L'étoile dans les Ténèbres, will Elizabeth find the courage to break the curse and open her heart, or will she lose her one chance at true love by revealing her heart's darkest secrets?