At age fifty, Rev. Dr. Olympia Brown is at a turning point; shall she continue working as a College Professor or leave the Ivory Tower for good and become a Parish Minister. An invitation to serve as Summer Chaplain at a seaside conference center in Maine provides the ideal opportunity to get away and think things through—except it doesn’t. On the day she arrives a distraught (and closeted) crew members tries to hang himself. Despite the tragedy the conference center must open on schedule.

Olympia Brown is called to minister to a ravaged community while trying to keep up the appearance of normalcy to the guests and visitors. Within days she begins to learn the story behind the tragedy of a shamed and bullied and desperate college student as well as the shamed and desperate bully who drove him to try to take his own life. Who can she tell? What can she do? When she finds herself in the middle, she calls on friend and clergy-colleague Fr. Jim Sawicki for advice but this turns out to be a serious mistake.

Meanwhile there is someone hiding in the woods just outside the camp-ground who is obsessed with revenge.