Sara traveled all the way from Sweden to Broken Wheel, Iowa to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town.