When a long-hidden collection of letters exposes a decades-old affair between a renowned Nobel Prize winning writer and the wife of her friend, archive-keeper Grace finds her own life changed, as the revelation cracks open her own buried secrets and desires . . .

Grace is a solitary archivist, living alone in the basement unit below her late mother's flat - which she has just sold to Eva and her partner Jacqueline. Grace has worked in the university library for many years, in the routine of staid academics and a lift constantly on the threat of breaking down.

The embargoed letters of Moira Shepard, a giant of Twentieth-century literature, are generating much excitement - and for Grace, too (or they should be). But as the date looms, it feels like the past is crowding up on her. As she watches, hearing the thuds and movements of the new couple in the flat she had so recently shared with her controlling mother, Grace is forced to confront her own relationships - and as Eva becomes a constant visitor to the basement, using the backroom as an artist's studio, to confront the feelings this awakens.

What future the opening of the letters will bring is uncertain. What is certain is that they will change things forever.