Emily Delahunty is an eccentric British people romance novelist who lives in Umbria in central Italy, where she runs a pensione for tourists. Mrs Delahunty settled in Italy to flee from a somewhat traumatic past which still haunts her, and lives alone apart from a few servants and her manager Quinty. One day while taking a shopping trip to Milano, the train she is on is bombed by terrorists. After she wakes up in a hospital, she invites three of the other survivors of the disaster to stay at her villa for recuperation. Of these are "the General" a retired British Army veteran, Werner, a young German people photographer, and Aimee, a young American girl who has now become Muteness after her parents were both killed in the explosion.