The well-heeled village of Temple Minnis presents a smooth and calm facade, but all is not as it seems. When Simon Shepherd goes to investigate the smell of smoke late one night, he comes across the beautiful and mysterious Bela who has taken refuge on his land. Why is she there? But there are greater mysteries in the village - thirty years earlier, the villagers conspired to plan and conceal a murder, but only the local novelist, Melissa, dying of cancer, suffers the pangs of conscience. It takes tough words and a touch of magic from the charismatic vicar to persuade her to write her story. but as the villagers face up to the past, their lives change irrevocably. Love turns to fury and errupts into tragedy when Simon and Bela - precariously straddling two cultures - are caught up in the revelations.