When fourteen-year-old Allie's mother, Mae, mysteriously disappears in the dark waters of the Sydney harbor, Allie is taken by Julia, an aunt she barely knows, to stay at the dilapidated dairy farm where her mother grew up. As the days pass and the heat of the wet season swells, Allie confidently waits for her mother's call, certain that Mae will reappear as she always has in the past. In the meantime, Allie lurks around the cabin belonging to her mother's first love, a man who still lives deep within the valley. When the truth about Mae's childhood and Allie's mythical father, the Balloon Man, begins to surface, Allie must sort through the lies her mother has told her and come to grips with the many secrets held close in the valley.
