Harry and Alice Haskins moved from the city in search of mid-life happiness. But fate has other plans. Alice is struggling with writer's block. Harry, an English professor, is haunted by a beguilingly provocative student. Their children, Joe and Grace, are in danger of capsizing in the deep waters of childhood. And when one of Alice's best friends embarks on a passionate affair, it sets off a chain of events that reverberates through the Haskins family and the rest of Sunnyside with devastating consequences . . . Alice and Harry face the big questions: how relationships camouflage the fault-lines of character, the vulnerabilities of families in the wake of emotional anarchy and the ever perplexing question of which is more compelling: passion or love?