Alice Lee, middle-aged and unmarried, is the only volunteer when the minister asks his congregation to help young Zebediah Bailey.
Zeb is in prison for a ghastly crime, and the townspeople would rather forget than forgive this local lad who lost his way. But Alice dutifully writes to him every week, sending him sweets from the little shop that is her livelihood: Alice Lee’s Confectionary. She won’t admit she’s lonely, but since her parents’ deaths, making and selling sweets has become her whole world.
Then Zeb comes out of gaol, and Alice agrees to take him in, much to the horror of her neighbours. What develops between them is unexpected – intense and bittersweet. It could be a new beginning or else the undoing of them both….