Blackburn Village is a quintessentially beautiful Colonial enclave on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, "a place where psychiatric diagnoses are inconsequential and organizing a chapter of A.A. would be a terrible waste of time." In the summer months, the salt-of-the-earth townspeople are joined by the imperious moneyed regulars from Boston, Charleston and Toronto. The two species do their level best to coexist in this idyllic place where old money lives and new money plays, where reason often unravels. The days are long and the nights are longer. Noon means holding onto a tiller or a tennis racquet and night is simply time to hold on even harder to a cocktail glass and a lobster sandwich.
The summer centrepiece is the large Carlisle family but few are aware of the unnerving energy that controls its members like a ringmaster. Broad smiles, perfect teeth, and impeccable manners prove to be not enough to provide the prescribed happiness they all expect. A desperate summer love and a stunning DNA revelation have the world of Blackburn Village spinning out of control.