A House Like a Lotus is the story of sixteen-year-old Polyhymnia O'Keefe (Polly) and her friendship with her middle-aged friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne. The relationship between the two begins when Polly's uncle Sandy introduces her to Max and Ursula. Max and Ursula have been lovers for many years. That friendship grows as Polly spends more and more time at Max's mansion, discussing her many shared interests with Max and growing in personal curiosity and emotional maturity. Polly's friendship with Max, as well as her budding but gentle relationship with Renny, a medical resident at the local hospital, are Polly's most fulfilling relationships, as she does not get along well with her classmates in high school. As Polly grows in confidence and develops her intersts, she begins to flourish. That flourishing is cut short when a traumatic incident between Max and herself leaves her reeling. All of the action in Greece centers around Polly's attempt to heal and overcome the trauma that this incident has caused.

A House Like a Lotus is an intensely psychological and nuanced novel that is driven more by reflection and contemplation than it is by plot. Nevertheless, its structuring narrative tensions leave the reader wondering just what happened between Max and Polly, and just why Polly's need to forgive Max is so urgent. We learn only toward the end of the novel that Max has made a drunken sexual advance on Polly and that Max is dying of a rare parasitic disease. The conjunction of these two circumstances lend a fraught urgency to the latter half of the book, eventually culminating in Polly's healing through the transformative power of the friendships she forms in Cyprus, where she is working as an aid at a conference at Max's suggestion.

In the end, Polly is able to find forgiveness in her heart and reclaim the genuine love she has for a woman too complex to be categorized as either strictly good or strictly bad.