Welcome to Gudhemma (God's home) in 1971, a central Minnesota town that was originally founded by Swedish Baptist immigrants. Meet Buddy Jenson, the fifty-one-year-old proprietor of the town's shame...the Gudhemma Saloon. Simple, honest, and the human embodiment of unconditional love, Buddy has lived his life burdened by feelings of unworthiness and a guilt that makes it far more difficult for him to accept such love than to give it.Shrewd and adventurous Serena Jenson inherited her grandfather Buddy's loveable, intuitive, and frank nature. She capitalizes on her circumstances by sheer audacity when she befriends the Baptist minister's two boys on the first day of school. Thus begins the rollicking ride of growing up, culminating in the realization that she loves Steve, the oldest of the brothers. But with that realization, she feels compelled to discover the secrets of her parentage.Steve Peterson shares Serena's spirit for adventure, but he is forever reconciling his actions to the behavior expected of the minister's son. His heaviest moment of introspection arrives when a parishioner is suspected of foul play, and Steve thinks that the entire situation could've been circumvented if he'd told his father what he'd witnessed a year earlier.