When Susan Morris buys a glass goldfinch bottle from a desperate young man, she thinks she is merely adhering to her aunt's admonition to "buy something pretty" for herself. Instead, she has just taken the first step toward the change in her life she has longed for—an adventure, a purpose, and love.

Daire Grassick is the only member of his family who has failed in their glassblowing business—failed in business altogether. He has failed so badly he has to sell the glass goldfinch, a family treasure, in order to have enough money to get home to his ailing father. What he doesn't realize is that, in selling the first gift his grandfather gave to his grandmother nearly fifty years earlier, he sold the formula for royal crystal. Without that formula to fulfill an order, the generations-old family business will be ruined.

Finding the lovely young lady to whom he sold the goldfinch isn't as difficult as Daire feared. Finding the goldfinch is another matter. It has disappeared from Susan's chaotic home. When they set out to locate the bauble, neither realizes they have set in motion a series of events that will change lives and hearts potentially for generations.