I don't love people any more, she thought, and I don't want to say my prayers. I'm all churched-out. When the Rev. Esme Browne, fortysomething Methodist minister, arrives in the quiet coastal resort of Southarbour, she enjoys an enviable reputation for efficiency, good preaching, pastoral sensitivity - and possesses an awful secret: a dead prayer life. Recently divorced, loneliness strikes at her centre. Within weeks she has encountered the fierce form of Seer Ember. Where did they come from, she wonders, these vile old ladies who made a career out of being rude? Yet soon Ember - and Jabez Ferrall, a wise and gentle mechanic - have become Esme's friends, their welcome a balm to her parched soul. In the case of Jabez, more than friendship may be on offer. But professional advancement beckons - very far from Southarbour.