After suffering a devastating loss, artist Sandra Lyall runs south to Mexico seeking solace from her grief. She finds refuge in a small Baja hotel on the edge of the sea to which she returns each winter to continue the healing of her heart. But this year’s stay would be different. When a scruffy Englishman with a posh accent offers to buy the painting she’s working on, everything changes, and Sandra finds herself torn between her hard-won serenity and her draw to a compelling but risky alternative. Mark Jeffery’s film career is in decline, his ex-wife’s behaviour has landed him in the tabloids, and he’s got nothing better to do than hang out in Mexico waiting for the phone to ring.

When he meets a woman painting a seascape on the roof of his friend’s hotel, he discovers a “not terribly exciting but predictable and rather refreshing” distraction from his troubled life. As Mark spends more time with her, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to this ordinary woman. With the magical waters of the Sea of Cortez as its backdrop, House of the Blue Sea tells a tale of surviving loss, seeing the extraordinary, and finding happiness in unexpected places.