Victoria Woodson, a highly regarded associate professor at a Sydney university, is an authority on erotic writing of the Victorian era. Her passion for this literature amply compensates, she believes, for the unfulfilling male relationships she has dropped from her life.

A savvy commercial publisher has pounced on a book Victoria intended for an academic audience. Victoria is shocked and disconcerted to see The Erotic Muse become a world-wide bestseller.

Reyne Kendall, an experienced and award-winning journalist, is assigned to do an in-depth feature on the woman behind the bestseller. Victoria dreads the sort of aggressive, probing person Reyne is likely to be. Her misgivings prove to be more than correct.

Reyne is self-made, irreverent and tough, and has little respect for the cloistered world of academia which is Victoria's sanctuary. Reyne brings one other volatile ingredient—she is boldly out as a lesbian.