Lucy Richardson has found her bliss as a librarian and resident of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. She loves the beach, the local book club, bounding with the library cat, and enjoying the attention of not one, but two eligible men. Then her socialite mother, Suzanne, unexpectedly drops in, determined to move Lucy back to Boston--and reunite her with her ex-fiancé. To make matters worse, Suzanne picks a very public fight at the local hotel with her former classmate Karen Kivas--who turns up dead outside the library the next morning.