Beautiful and spirited, Pannonica Rothschild, known as Nica, was born in 1913 to eccentric privilege and a storied family history. After marrying well, she settled into a French chateau to bear children and support her husband’s war career. But when Nica heard “Round Midnight” by jazz composer Thelonious Monk, everything changed. She abandoned her marriage, found Monk in New York, and devoted herself to him and to other musicians, becoming the unsung philanthropist of the city’s Jazz scene.

Hannah Rothschild has given twenty years to the quest of revealing who her great-aunt really was. Drawing on unpublished archival material, private family records and her own interviews, she has produced a fascinating portrait—part musical odyssey, part love story—that showcases a woman ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted.