British couple Hugh and Julia Pennington buy an old church to convert on a former cocoa plantation on a Caribbean island. When their estate agent fails to meet them at the airport, they accept a lift in a large American car from a charismatic local, Horatio. The couple are to become increasingly dependent on Horatio who ends up moving into their 'servants' quarters' but remains an enigma.

Hugh and Julia want to 'get involved' in the life of their adopted island home. But they little suspect how much the past horrors of slavery, and their best intentions, will impact their lives.

This tense psychological drama examines the delicate master-servant relationship against a Caribbean island's colonial background and a still simmering history of slavery. An intimate portrait of a marriage, the novel also explores the difficulties of human communication and how these are compounded when race, sex and culture-bound assumptions are added to the mix.