Set in the rural landscape of Stony Creek, New South Wales, 1885 Jacki Nicholls succeeds in painting a romantic picture of rolling pastures and sheep farming around the fascinating world of horse racing. Despised at an early age by his brother and then orphaned by the unexpected death of both parents, Alex Burns is a broken man. Determined to lead a quiet productive life on the farm he has inherited when Alex meets sharp-witted and beautiful Ellen, he resolves to make her his wife. Alex's upward trajectory continues with a dynamic business partnership and before long the rewards of being a racehorse owner begin to manifest. So, when Alex's estranged brother appears without warning in Stony Creek, and Alex is coincidentally killed in a house fire, conclusions are quickly drawn, and arrests swiftly made, and Ellen finds herself prematurely widowed. But in one last unanticipated twist, Nicholls brings back a man from Ellen's past apparently keen to relieve himself of a most remarkable confession.