Lita del Cielo has been granted one year to pursue her studies in Paris before returning to work in the family business. She moves into a gently crumbling Left Bank mansion known as “The House of Stars,” where the spirited but bedridden Countess Séraphine rents out rooms to young women visiting Paris to work, study, and, unofficially, to find love. Guarded at first, Lita keeps a cool distance from the other girls, who both intimidate and fascinate her. Then Lita meets the charming and enigmatic, Cato, the son of a notorious right-wing politician, and her world shifts. is a spellbinding love story, a portrait of a Paris caught between old world grandeur and the international greenblood elite, and an exploration of one woman’s journey to distinguish honesty from artifice and lay claim to her own life.