Into a small, poor Appalachian Mountains community in the Great Depression era arrive a young widower, Wayland Jackson, a clockmaker, and his 12-year-old daughter.
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford.
Georgie is slowly suffocating in a loveless marriage to fishing tycoon Jim Buckridge. Handsome poacher Lu is an irresistible symbol of the excitement she craves. A passionate affair follows that reveals the dark secrets in Lu’s past and forces him to take flight into the blistering heat of the outback. Georgie follows, determined to find him and bring him back.
Montana sheep farmer Rebecca Yoder offers sanctuary to an on-the-lam outlaw, Johnny Gault, who is suffering from a gunshot wound. Yoder is a recent widow, and her decision to help the outsider doesn't sit well with her Quaker community. As a romance brews between her and Gault, it puts in jeopardy her standing among her devout neighbors. But when an evil rancher makes a play for the community's land, Gault's sharpshooting skills might prove his worth after all.