After losing her husband, Rocky she leaves town and her job as a psychologist and heads to secluded Peak’s Island, off the coast of Portland. There, she becomes the local Animal Control Warden and reinvents her past so that it no longer includes the tragic fact of her husband’s death.

When Rocky finds a dog with a strange handmade arrow sticking out of his shoulder, she finds both a soulmate, and uncovers the beginnings of a mystery. With the new friends she meets on the island, Tess, the synesthete; Melissa, the young anorexic; and Hill, her archery instructor, whom she is simultaneously suspicious of and attracted to-Rocky slowly unravels the mystery of Lloyd the dog, the arrow, and his missing owner. In doing so, she learns that her grief can be displaced, slowly but surely, by moments of joy.