Growing up means learning new things and in the summer of her fourteenth year Teddy Schaefer learns a lot more about life than she ever wanted to. She has been looking forward to a sailing her little boat in the waters around her Gulf Island home but her mom has other ideas. She informs Teddy that they are spending the summer in the "middle of nowhere" also known as Lipton, Saskatchewan. As boring as that seems to Teddy, sometimes, the middle of nowhere can become the center of the universe. A elderly Chinese Tai Chi instructor, an alcoholic aunt, an uncle who is in jail for putting a farm equipment company out of business and a kind policeman who turns out to be an old flame of her mom all take part in the most important and pivotal summer of young Teddy's life. Pender Island Blues is all about living and learning how to adjust to the storms that life can send your way.