It’s 1963, and Isabel Hammond, an expat accompanying her agriculture aid worker husband to Nigeria, is hoping to find inspiration for her art and her life. Then she meets charismatic local singer Bobby Tunde, and they share a night of passion that could upend everything. Seeking solace and distraction, she returns to her painting and her home in a rural town, where she plants a lemon tree and unearths an ancient statue buried in her garden. She knows that the dancing female figure is not hers to keep, yet she is reluctant to give it up, and soon, she notices other changes that make her wonder what the dancing woman might portend.

Against the backdrop of political unrest in Nigeria, Isabel’s situation also becomes precarious. She finds herself in the center of a tide of suspicion, torn between the confines of her domestic life and the desire to immerse herself in her art and the culture surrounding her. The expat society, the ancient Nigerian culture, her family, and even the statue hidden in a back room—each trouble and beguile Isabel. Amid all this, can she finally become who she wants to be?