"Set in the present day on a farm at the shores of Lake Erie, this novel weaves elements from the 19th-century past, in Ireland and Ontario, into a gradually unfolding contemporary story of events in the lives of the members of one family that come to alter their futures irrevocably. There are ancestral lighthouse-keepers, seasonal Mexican workers; the migratory patterns of the Monarch butterfly; the tragedy of a young woman's death during a tour of duty in Afghanistan; three different love stories. All the events reveal the sometimes difficult path to understanding and forgiveness."--Publisher.