The book - set in Oxfordshire and Lake Garda - tells the story of a young woman who loses her parents in a tragic accident, and in rebuilding her life finds resolution for her racial identity.

Set in the current day, this novel is about Margarita's struggles with her mixed-race background after her parents die in a plane accident.

[1] Soon after her sixteenth birthday, Margarita's coming-of-age story includes new bonds with family, learning about herself, and managing challenges.

As gets to know that part of her family and the people in his community - including a menacing elderly woman and a young girl with autism - she begins to deal with her grief, starts to love and trust again, and accepts herself.

[2][3] Part I After her parents' death, Margarita becomes the ward of her Mom's Cousin Francis, and moves in with him during boarding school holidays.

Margarita gets along with everyone at Hockton, except for a small number of people who react with coldness and hostility due to her foreign appearance and her status as an outsider.

Part II On returning to Swithins Mill for the Spring holidays, Margarita has more intense interactions with Miss Laura, who clearly wants her to stop taking up Cousin Francis time.

As Miss Laura's hostility towards her escalates, her life is saved by the Ghost Dog.Cousin Francis commissions Giles to recreate the painting of Margarita.

Part III In July of that same year, Cousin Francis brings Margarita to his house - Casa della Rocca - on Lake Garda, Italy.

Margarita and Cousin Francis spend several wonderful weeks there, boating on the water, touring the Dolomites and visiting the local sights.

She feels able to see clearly, without being impacted, "the humiliations I had suffered to my pride among white people, the condescension of the stupid, the uncomfortable silences of the narrow-minded, the petty innuendos and hints of Miss Laura."

[4] Margarita Somerville, the protagonist of the story, is a multi-ethnic young women of 16 who becomes an orphan, and experiences a year of change and growth.

During World War II, Francis (then known as Il Capitano) had been in Italy working with the partisans, including near Lake Garda.

Bullied and tormented by Miss Laura her whole life, she accepted Francis invitation to join him in Lake Garda after the war.

[7] Taught at a girls’ secondary school in Kent as part of English in the late 1970s, Portrait of Margarita was one of the sets of class novels in the stock cupboard.

Susan Elkin notes, "it's a rather weak story about an orphaned teenager who goes to live with her dishy but enigmatic guardian," concluding that the sub-plot about autism was the more interesting part.

[4] Sheila Ray comments that the romantic nature of this novel is somewhat offset by the contemporary problems introduced: racial identity, and autism.