'In late summer, hives full of ripening honey emitted a particular scent, like the whiff of sweetness Augusta used to catch passing by the candy-apple kiosk at the fall fair...' Augusta Olsen is a woman with passions and desires who has inherited three things from her mother: a wayward heart, a talent for beekeeping and the very dubious gift of second sight. These are legacies just too big for a young wife who finds life on a remote farm with shy, awkward Karl and his detestable father almost unbearable. But farming husbands and wives are married to their land as much as to each other. From that kind of necessity, a different sort of love is made - and remade... When Augusta resurrects her mother's beekeeping equipment sweet possibilities become evident. As Augusta relives the story of her sometimes harsh and sometimes magical life, we are drawn into a world of rich domestic detail and into the life, death and resurrection of a marriage.
