Melanie Dwyer has had some disappointments to deal with lately. She’s lost her corporate job and her lover of many years just moved out. Buying an old house miles from nowhere in eastern Ontario, to run a bed and breakfast with a definite ‘green’ agenda, might be considered a poorly-researched decision, but she is undaunted. Along with her country education, she finds new friends―people with far more memorable lives than most of the city folk Mel knew. Together, they form a family for her, and she is delighted. She has animals, too, a dog, four cats, chickens, and a sheep called Marilyn. It’s not too late for sex, even love, unexpected and exquisite for a woman in her forties. But one brutish man disturbs her---young Amy's abusive lover. 'Someone should do something about him,' she joshes to David, who isn't sure she's joking. But everyone knows Mel isn't a violent person, right?