If a single word was to describe her, it would have to be ambition. After a grim childhood in Leroy, North Dakota, Gabrielle Chevalier moves her beauty and haughty spirit to Montreal where she marries in 1911. That same year however, a dark, unspeakable sin casts a formidable pall on her promising life. Over the next eighteen years, as per the dictates of her faith, Gaby will suffer her punishment in angry silence.

In 1932, her penance now officially honoured, a renewed quest for healing propels her to Paris. There, amidst unforeseen and frightening emotions, she becomes Gabrielle, a carefree and dazzling woman she never knew. Four weeks later, perplexed and confused about what has happened to her, she returns to her colorless marriage in Québec. Then, gradually, her harrowing dilemma becomes clear: the Church may have forgiven her terrible sin, but she has not.

Only after her long, untoward journey, might Gabrielle finally grant herself the only absolution she ever needed.