At the close of the nineteenth century, wheelchair-bound Augustus Auerbach’s only interest is his extraordinarily lucrative business: the manufacture and marketing of pornographic photographs. His outlook is forever altered, however, when one of his models pressures him to attend a séance. There, Augustus meets the medium Verena Swann, a beautiful widow who gives voice to the long-dead spirit of his beloved mother. Through a series of private sittings, Verena and Augustus form first a friendship, then a romance–a relationship challenged by greed, obsession, jealousy, and the ghosts of relationships past.