Off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, generations have been tempted by strange blue lights in the sky near an island called Lyra. At the height of World War II, impressionable young Elle Ranier comes to the island when her new husband, Simon, is dispatched by his industrialist father to find the source of the mysterious lights. There they will live for decades, raising a family while employing much of the island's population in a quixotic campaign to find and exploit the elusive minerals rumoured to lurk offshore. 50 years later, as Simon's business is shuttered in disarray, Elle looks back at her life on the mysterious island - and at a secret she herself has guarded for decades.