"Summerhill" is an idyllic tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Paul Pflüger and his daughter Aisha live here in peaceful coexistence with the Orang Asli, the aboriginal residents of the region. But the wonderful surroundings cannot conceal the fact that the splendid colonial structure, which was built on a site holy to the Orang Asli, seems to be under a terrible curse: every woman from the O'Hanlon family who married a foreigner died shortly after the birth of her first child. Paul's beloved wife Cecilia O'Hanlon also died of a mysterious fever when Aisha was just one year old. Since then Paul has been running the tea plantation according to ecological principles – much to the dislike of his tradition-bound father-in-law John O'Hanlon. He puts little faith in bio-tea and feels that the concerns of the locals are exaggerated.
