The story follows a rebellious teenage dropout, Emelia Conan Doyle, who firmly believes she is a descendant of the famous author and books a job as a cleaner at a seaside hotel run by Jonathan Fischer, a German writer plagued by writer’s block since the splash of his debut novel, The Cliff House, twenty-one years earlier. Jonathan lives in the hotel with his wife Joa and their two daughters, Beth, a 17-year-old on the cusp of medical school, and Posy, only six. The household is tense: Jonathan spends long hours holed up in the attic chasing ideas that stubbornly refuse to take shape, while Joa keeps the hotel running and tries to manage a frayed marriage, frustrated by Jonathan’s lack of recent success and his distant parenting. Emelia, meanwhile, has grown up with her grandparents after her mother’s suicide, carrying a sense of complicated legacy with her every step.
On Emelia’s first day, she discovers a startling sight: Jonathan masturbating in the attic. The encounter introduces a charged tension that threads through the rest of the tale. She also meets Beth, who aspires to study medicine at Oxford, and Beth invites Emelia to join the family for dinner. During the meal, Emelia reveals that she is drafting a novel but feels the weight of living up to the Conan Doyle name. Jonathan, sensing a kindred spark, offers Emelia creative writing lessons, which they conduct in secret in the attic, a space that becomes both workshop and sanctuary—and ultimately the scene of much more intimate exploration.
A pivotal moment occurs when Jonathan drives Emelia to the grave of Arthur Conan Doyle, a gesture laden with symbolism about lineage, fame, and the burden of expectation. The two gradually enter into a sexual relationship, a dangerous hinge in a house already fraught with jealousy and unresolved needs. In parallel, Emelia helps Beth loosen her own strict boundaries, and the two form a deep friendship that becomes a lifeline amid the family turbulence.
Emelia’s bond with Beth soon moves beyond mentorship. The two girls share dreams, defiance, and camaraderie, even as the relationship between Emelia and Jonathan deepens. When Beth travels with Emelia to Oxford for her entrance interview, their night out turns into a wild gathering of students. Beth’s romantic encounter with one of the attendees contrasts sharply with the more complicated emotional terrain of the adults at the hotel. The interview, initially planned for later, is moved up, and Beth returns nervous but buoyed by Emelia’s steadfast encouragement.
Back at home, guilt gnaws at Emelia as she contends with the consequences of her affair. She also wrestles with the death of her grandmother, a loss that magnifies the emotional stakes. Beth falls ill in the wake of the funeral, and Emelia suspects morning sickness. She brings a pregnancy test to Beth’s room, and in the same moment, Jonathan calls Emelia back to the attic. Emelia confronts him with a stark truth: she has given up on writing and accuses him of wasting every day since The Cliff House. Joa, in a moment of crisis, confronts Beth with the pregnancy test she finds, which indicates no pregnancy, and reveals Beth’s sexual activity to Jonathan. The confession erupts into a brutal confrontation, and Jonathan’s affair is laid bare. In a heated climax, Joa declares her fury aloud, cutting deep into the family’s fragile balance.
The moment is seismic: Beth overhears Joa’s explosive line and learns that she has been betrayed by those she trusted most. She rejects Emelia’s attempted reconciliation and, in a painful revelation, declares that she is not a Conan Doyle. The family’s social illusion begins to crumble, and Emelia is left to face the consequences and the truth about her own identity. When Emelia questions her grandfather about the family myth, he reveals that her mother had lied about being a Conan Doyle descendant. Yet he also gives Emelia something rarer and more meaningful: the permission and encouragement to pursue her own voice, explaining that the Conan Doyle name had been a burden she could now cast off.
With the emotional storm finally easing, Jonathan returns the laptop to Emelia and urges her to keep writing. She begins to channel her sense of being unshackled into a new creative drive, turning to her manuscript with renewed energy. A telling moment occurs at a copy shop, where Emelia spots Beth being driven to Oxford wearing Emelia’s own top, the truth of their complicated bond lingering between them. Emelia offers a smile as Beth looks away with a cool, guarded gaze, and she rides away on her bicycle with the printed draft of her novel, a piece she proudly titles Albatross.
In the end, what remains is not a tidy resolution but a forward-looking resolve: Emelia’s voice is shaping itself into a real work of fiction, free from the heavy legacy she once carried. The manuscript titled Albatross becomes a symbol of the personal freedom she has forged, a testament to endurance in the face of family upheaval, secrecy, and the daunting but inspiring pursuit of writing your own truth.
> "… you have been fucking our daughter's best friend?"
