In 1960s Australia, in which a lonely farmer finds his life turned upside down by the arrival of a passionate librarian--a Holocaust survivor determined to leave Europe behind as she opens the first bookshop his town has ever seen. It is 1968 in rural Australia and young Tom Hope is doing his best. In love with the land, but not much of a farmer, it's when his wife becomes pregnant--though by another man--that Tom finds true fulfilment in the role of a father. When inevitably his wife leaves, taking little Peter with her, Tom is heartbroken. Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jewish person--and the most vivid woman--Tom has ever met. Hannah has opened the town's first bookshop, filling its shelves with all the darkness and light of post-war Europe. Tom dares to believe they could make each other happy, but Hannah is a haunted woman. Twenty-four years ago she and her own little boy had arrived at Auschwitz.