Rachel Yoder, a New Order Amish woman, lost her husband and son in a tragic accident two years ago. Now, returning to her aging parents with her young daughter, she has resigned herself to the life of a widow. With a subdued but cheerful heart, she helps her family run a bed-and-breakfast in a quaint Lancaster county town.

Philip Bradley, a world-weary journalist from New York City on assignment in Lancaster to write an article on the Amish community, is a lodger at the Yoders' bread-and-breakfast. A chance discovery by Philip of a postcard written in illegible Pennsylvania Dutch in the dresser of his room sets off a series of events that leads him into the heart of the Amish life and to the bedside of a mysterious woman known as "The Storyteller". With the postcard as a link to a haunted past, the woman gradually weaves a riveting tale as old as herself about a community shuttered in secrecy, shattered by betrayal. Fascinated by the story, Philip's and Rachel's lives become inevitably intertwined, despite the attempts of the community to protect her from the outsider. Torn by devotion to the people she loves and the awakening feelings in her heart, Rachel searches her past to restore old wounds in order that new love might grow.