Throughout her childhood and adolescence, the anonymous author of The Incest Diary was raped by her father. Beneath a veneer of normal family life, she grew up in and around this all-encompassing secret. Her sexual relationship with her father lasted, off and on, into her 20s. It formed her world, and it formed her deepest fears and desires.

The book consists of three stories. All of these stories show the problem of women. Women who live in different moods face different types of problems. Sex is the root of all problems. The heroines in all three stories are either murders or similar things. They have their own justifications for each story.

Giselle Doran is a daddy's girl - a sexy 18-year-old siren who's all about the Benjamins. Her father is a king in the drug distribution game, and she views him as the perfect man. When she meets Shawn, she thinks she's found the one. Mimi Gordon is not attracted to drug dealers, until Tony comes along. He provides her with a lavish lifestyle, and once she's had a taste, Mimi is hooked. Giselle and Mimi cross paths in the most unusual way. Eventually, both women will be forced to make life-changing decisions when they find out their men aren't who they thought they were.

There’s no escape. “You’re not leaving. You belong to me. Get used to it.” Blake Baird is a man who takes what he wants. And now he’s taken me. I came for the job as a maid but now… His dark eyes hint at all the things he’s done as leader of the Scottish mob. He won’t hurt me, I tell myself. He and Dad were best friends once. Surely that will keep me safe, but he wants steaminess, not violence. My self-esteem isn’t low, but hey, I’m a realist. I’m nineteen, on the curvy side, and determined to find the man who killed my mother. I’m not built to satisfy this mob-boss ...

Originally published in 1936, this is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with her famous lovers, nor does it contain graphic depiction of sex. Rather, it is a surrealistic look within the narrator's subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin's words, as she attempts to escape from "the woman's season in hell." Nin's usage of the word "incest" in this case is metaphorical, not literal.