it's 1997, and britain's goblin soap heiress, caroline weetwood, an introverted history undergraduate, is about to depart for a summer of solitary research on formentera, a peaceful mediterranean island. chaos erupts, however, when her secret schooldays penfriend, american heiress misty start, materialises for the weekend at the weetwoods' gloomy mansion. caroline is frosty towards this beautiful dynamic texan who's just abandoned harvard; james, caroline's handsome but reclusive brother, is infatuated; crusty lord weetwood, their distant father, is inexplicably shocked by misty's acquaintance with caroline. and then, on monday, when backpacking misty flies to paris, her tycoon father, sonny start, a cool forty-year-old leading a troubled double life, accuses goblin of shocking industrial espionage. isolated on magical formentera, caroline fights a losing battle to resist the island's seduction. but within days of a traumatised misty suddenly turning up at her remote villa, animal rights activists contact lord weetwood and sonny, demanding ransoms for their kidnapped daughters. when the mutually suspicious fathers follow lovesick james to formentera, dramatic events swiftly transform all their arid lives.