Dr. Austen Morgan, an Archaeology professor with North Dobson University in Michigan, is currently following up on some research in Port Grace, Malta concerning a reference to a "golden way" in Port Grace mentioned in a diary recently unearthed in a seventeenth century Jesuit settlement in Michigan, that description alongside a drawing of a box, its contents unknown but which Austen believes may have contained whatever riches were brought to the New World from Port Grace. He is in a time crunch as he learns that he has one week to submit a proposal for the one and only funded project by the university for the year, if he gets it which would certainly guarantee securing his dream of the soon to be open tenured position. In Port Grace, he literally and figuratively has a few run-ins with local apiarist, Eva Bellacallea, those antagonistic encounters only exasperated by his fear of bees due to being highly allergic to their stings. Eva has only recently returned to this work in the family business and Malta following her mother's passing, her younger sister Chloe temporarily assisting specifically with the business' role in the town's imminent honey festival in taking a break in being passed over from a promotion in her marketing job. In moving a wild hive on the side of a building, Eva uncovers a fresco, the incomplete images which Austen believes may be keys to his research. With their work intersecting, Austen and Eva end up spending time together and start to fall for each other. Beyond the geographic differences in Austen having to head home to Michigan at some point in time, what happens between two of them may be affected by the intersection of their work and how one may impact the other, both for good and bad.
