Late one night near the middle of her life when all her careful plans have gone awry, Alyssa Harad stumbles across a blog devoted to reviewing perfume. She is not the kind of woman who wears perfume. But she is a reader, and the ability to describe a fragrance unfolding in the air with words seems like a magic trick. In the reviews perfume becomes a place, a person, a moment in history. Perfume becomes a story at a moment when she needs a new one. Harad follows the magical trail of scent from a private museum of rare essences in Austin, Texas, to the glamorous fragrance showrooms of Manhattan, and finally to a homecoming in Boise, Idaho—undoing and expanding her understanding of gender, femininity, pleasure and identity along the way. Candid, elegant, insightful, full of lush description and gentle humor, reveals the intimate connections between our senses and our selves.