It is 1968 in rural Australia, and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met --- she's passionate, brilliant and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has read only one book in his life, when Hannah hires him to install shelving for the shop, the two discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife --- and still missing her sweet son, Peter --- Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy. But Hannah is a haunted woman. Twenty-four years earlier, she had been marched to the gates of Auschwitz.