Flighty and whimsical Esme Duval travels to France to study abroad. She meets Lucas Wood, a young British man on a weekend excursion to Biarritz, and quickly falls in love with him. It is only later that the man reveals that he's actually famous in his country and warns her that the media spends a great deal of time inventing stories about him.

And not long after, the media becomes fascinated with their relationship, though they attempt to keep it as private as possible. None of the stories that they fabricate are remotely close to their actual lives and to escape the scrutiny, they saunter to a friend's house in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. Everything seems peaceful and copacetic until a friend is mysteriously found dead in the woods. And the only clue that the police are able to find is a ratty 5-subject notebook. There's a problem, however: the police cannot discern whether or not it's a diary or manuscript highlighting their relationship in an obsessive form.

And who wrote it?

Another problem: Esme and Lucas aren't talking...and they seem to have a secret of their own.