After trying out her adult wings in California, Melinda LeBlanc has come home to work for her cousin arranging flowers. Out of place and outdated, she befriends Libby, who designs strange dresses in the shop next door, and Dennis Vaughan, a native son and very attractive black man who owns the hip Brookhoppers, a fly fisherman's paradise. Libby aims to marry Dennis. Melinda tries to keep her dignity as an un-degreed lonely woman in a college town. And Dennis wants--what? Lipman is a modern-day Jane Austen and her characters crackle with wit and intelligence.