When she ran away in 1947, Jasmine Holmes was young and beautiful. Now she's home again: sick, broke, divorced, her life in ruins—a perfect project for her aunt Emma Madison, master meddler. But small-town secrets live long in darkness, and the ones Jasmine guards may be the darkest of all.

How to fix Jasmine? True, her reputation as the town tramp was well deserved. When she fled tiny Medford for Las Vegas nine years ago, it was in a cloud of scandal. Once Emma rescues Jasmine from a hospital bed and her niece's eight-year-old daughter from foster care, few townsfolk welcome her return. And when Jasmine recovers and begins nursing the dying wife of her once-supposed lover, Medford erupts in a veritable volcano of gossip.

Lovers from a decade ago appear, then a new suitor. Soon emotions of desire, jealousy, spite and fear roil the once-peaceful community. During her brief stay, Jasmine sets the lives of many on trajectories they never could have expected. And although her own journey may be long and arduous, love and joy wait at the end, thanks to an elderly lady with the remarkable ability to take things gone wrong and set them to rights. Subtly influencing the course of events—watching, waiting, and then pulling the strings with perfect timing—is Jasmine's sage and savvy aunt, the redoubtable Emma Madison.