A Boston computer expert and amateur gardener, Emma Porter, lands a job in England on a duke's estate where a murder occurred. Together with another employee, an artist restoring a chapel, she proceeds to investigate and finds love.

Blythe Stowe, who is fleeing a Hollywood scandal, rents a cottage in remote Cornwall, the home of her ancestors, and after reading a genealogy chart, is transported to the past, where the trials and conflicts of her family during that era help reconcile her to the present.