Louisa Atherton lives a pampered life until the day her husband Jack dies of a heart-attack in the arms of another woman leaving her bankrupt and giving her no option but to move with her daughter Holly to her childhood home of Rainbow's End and her prickly mother Minna. Her main aim is to sell "Mary Kelly's" dilapidated house which was left to her by her father. But through a series of events she sets about doing up the house and moving into it along with the helpful and not so helpful advice of the townspeople of Rainbow's End.

Now stuck in Rainbow's End, Louisa is deeply depressed and humiliated as she's forced to sell her clothes at a garage sale and search for unskilled work.

Shannon Atherton is lost, but a footy legend doesn't admit to feelings of insecurity, nor will he face the fact that he's a has-been at 24. And he's in financial trouble. Shannon's life has run off the rails and so he does what he's always done, he looks to his mother Louisa to help him out.

An exhausted Louisa is juggling her cleaning and photography jobs with heavy labour, as she struggles to finish the shack by herself.

Louisa is about to start a new phase of her life. The shack is for sale, the auction sign's up; the minute it's sold Louisa is moving on.