Avalon Harbor is a quiet lakeside town where everybody has known everyone else for generations. Shayna Lynburgh has spent the summer before her first year of college watching her mother succumb to cancer and working toward her dream of becoming a journalist. Lonely and bored, she longs for a distraction. Val Alston is a nationally renowned poet. As the new visiting college professor, he moves into town with his marriage on the verge of collapse and a blossoming addiction to alcohol. When Val and Shayna cross paths, they begin an obsessive affair that has the entire town watching and talking. As Shayna gradually becomes aware of Val's inner demons, she is faced with making difficult decisions about her own role in Val's alcohol abuse and his professional collapse. The consequences of the choices she makes sets into motion a chain reaction of events that will shake the small town she's known all her life to its core.