College English professor Rachel Monroe realizes that life is about connections. Before her husband Tom’s death from cancer, he made her promise that she would pursue all the goals and dreams she had left behind in her life. Knowing that even in death Tom is leading her, Rachel completes her first fiction manuscript, one of the goals she had never accomplished, and finds a second career as a writer. When a publicity tour takes her from her Kansas home to Australia, she has the opportunity to find her Australian high school pen pal, Jenny Phillips, who had quit writing near the end of their senior year. Rachel visits Coolum Beach, the oceanside town where Jenny lived most of the years the two girls corresponded. Rachel can sense a change, that Tom isn’t guiding her as he once was. She struggles with a new manuscript and reconciling her hope that somehow she’ll find Jenny. In the process, she meets Jamie Stephens and as Jamie’s life becomes intertwined with Rachel’s, she begins to understand that her connection to Jenny was not just about writing letters, but ultimately a guide for Rachel’s life.

She meets Jamie Stephens, her condo neighbor at the resort, and finds herself spending her free time with him, discussing Tom’s death and her need to find Jenny while in the midst of it trying to piece together a new manuscript. As they mold and shape their friendship, Jamie becomes intertwined with Rachel’s life. Near the end of her trip, she and Jamie travel to Brisbane to locate the address where they find out Jenny’s parents still live. Rachel isn’t prepared for the news that Jenny died in a car accident their last year of high school. When Jenny’s parents offer Rachel all her letters, including a copy of the first manuscript she had written and sent to Jenny, Rachel finds her own history back in her hands. She realizes that Jenny had been leading her there. And to Jamie. As she departs Australia to return to Kansas, Jamie reminds her she will be back Down Under. Rachel can then see her first letter to Jenny was the start of a journey that took over twenty years to understand. Their connection was not just about writing letters, but ultimately a guide for Rachel’s life.