It is 2012, and recent UCLA grad Tiffany Ryan lands a prestigious job--assistant to a famous novelist. When her boss steals her manuscript about her grandmother's plight during the 1930s Great American Dust Bowl, Tiffany takes her to court in a copyright infringement case. Embedded within Tiffany's story are her grandmother's journal entries; a love story about the drought and dust; the suffering during that awful time on the plains, titled Heartache and Hope.