They "took her on their vessel. They had silver suits and stainless-steel boots. The vessel was ultra-modern and entirely impressive." The first person Delia tells her story to is the local policeman who finds her wandering on the highway outside the small New Zealand town of Opunake. As the story spreads, theories abound as to why she would make up such a thing. One explanation holds that her job at Borthwick's Freezing Works had unhinged her since "it was known that 80 percent of the town's female population were being taxed to the point of near nervous collapse by the factory's unrelenting regimen." Skeptical as the local townspeople are, the discovery of a dead cow in the middle of a crop circle adds credence to Delia's story, and soon little Opunake is at the center of a media blitz. Then Phillip Sullivan, an ex-soldier with a dream of reopening the town library, arrives and falls for our heroine. One by one, secrets are laid bare, mysteries are solved, and nobody's life will be the same again.