Arresting and beautiful, The Consolation of Maps tells a story of ill-fated passion. Theodora Appel runs a company that is more like a family. When young Kenji Tanabe moves from Tokyo to Washington, he's initiated into her rarefied world of antiquarian cartography. But Theodora - brilliantly successful, beguilingly secretive - has another obsession. It is in Florence, where past clashes with present and even love has a price, that her impossible dream will threaten them all.