[2][3] The book tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, an Anglican priest from Devon, England, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress, who are both traveling to Australia by ship.

They meet on a ship to Australia, where Lucinda has bought a glass factory, having long been fascinated by the material.

He has used his observation of nature as a sign from God for something less severe, and believes he has joined a more compassionate church with the Anglicans.

Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church (which will be built by her factory in Sydney) from there to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the New South Wales coast.

A reviewer for The Guardian commented that the novel was influenced by Father and Son, the autobiography of the English poet Edmund Gosse.