A year after a devastating experience in Haiti, Nia Freeman has decided to leave Washington, DC, with the resolve to live life on her own terms and to prepare for the peak oil crisis. She needs to get away from nightmares of earthquakes, evacuations, clogged streets, rowdy mobs, and crumbling buildings. Nia quits her job at the EPA and crushes her grandfather’s hope that she would join the family business. Instead, she moves into her childhood home in the south, with plans of finding her true self and preparing for a future without oil. Her buddy John Cole helps her renovate the ancestral home and she sets about stockpiling emergency supplies and making the house safe. But her plans take a detour when the attractive Thandi Kapencher asks for Nia’s help to find her brother. Thandi feels Nia’s background might give her credibility with local charity groups, to find out about her brother’s whereabouts. Nia takes up Thandi’s offer but soon realizes she is caught in a situation more dangerous than she anticipated. Her feelings for Thandi and her need to do right, propel her forward. Will Nia find the courage to face her past and overcome her fear of the future?