Ruth Black is an English novelist left widowed by the mysterious death of her husband during the Great War. She immigrates to Australia and settles in the sleepy coastal town of Pelican River to repair her broken heart and work on her next novel. But her quiet life is thrown into disarray when Aunt Julia arrives with an urgent, dreadful message. Ruth's life is in danger and the threat is from a source not entirely of this world. With the assistance of her butler Rutherford, and her good friend the inventor Gordon Duncombe, Ruth finds herself caught up in a hair-raising race to defy her impending doom.