Jemima Carlisle was being made redundant, had nowhere to live and was worried about her bankrupt father. But her decision to take up village life did not work out as peacefully as she had hoped. Her plan to open a bookshop led her straight into controversy. Being the target of one group's fatwa, the sharer of the vicar's wife's dark secrets and the piggy in the middle of a tempestuous relationship might have been enough for Jemima, but the arrival of her father with some new money-making scam, and the attempts by various local jockeys to alter her views on horse-racing, made her realise that one should never jump to conclusions.