Any small town surely has secrets that may eventually seep out from the cracks, but when they're buried under salt mines, they're bound to be sprinkled with mystery. Claire and Jo Gilly, sisters just about as different as can be, grew up at Salt Creek Farm in tiny Prospect, MA. The Gilly lot is a hard one, with very little money, a year-long commitment to mining the salt, and suffering at the hands of the townspeople who believe they may be witches.

Proud Jo is devoted to the salt and to her best friend Whit Turner, while delicately beautiful Claire waits for a proposal from her high school boyfriend, Ethan. But when Ethan announces his plans for the priesthood, Claire sets the old salt barn aflame-- with Jo inside-- and everything changes for good.

As the now permanently scarred Jo hangs on for her life, Claire leaves her and Salt Creek Farm behind for her own relationship with Whit, Prospect's wealthiest bachelor. Seizing your sister's old flame isn't the strongest foundation for marriage, though, and when Claire discovers Whit has been dallying with teenaged-- and now pregnant-- Dee Pitman, Claire is forced to rescue her rival for Whit's love and return to the very place she ran from years before. Through all of these ups and downs, Father Ethan Stone, Claire's former love, returns to combat troubles in the town's centuries-old church, St. Agnes-by-the-Sea.

The fireworks that fly among Gillys, Turners, and the town will force strange alliances and the outing of salty secrets that threaten to doom the Gillys forever.