Eleven-year-old Raine Hunter's family moves from the town of Blackheart Bay, Nova Scotia to Desolation Creek in the Australian Outback, where her father will begin pastoring a small church. But not long after they begin their new lives, a tragedy befalls the family.

Devastated, Raine's parents leave the ministry and move their family back to Blackheart Bay. There, Raine grows into a young woman but is haunted by the guilt she lives with because of the tragedy, and the accusation and anger she sees in her father's eyes whenever she looks at him. At eighteen, after an ugly quarrel with her father, Raine leaves home and moves to Halifax.

Years later, Raine's father has suffered a heart attack, and her brother, a widowed youth pastor with two young daughters, has vanished under suspicious circumstances. Raine reluctantly returns to her hometown, struggling with bitterness for her father, fear for her missing brother, and the responsibility of caring for her nieces.