It is the final summer of Collie's innocence when an ill-fated romance forces her into maturity. Fast approaching the age of adulthood under the king's law, Collie, the beautiful, eldest daughter of a Middletown tinker, sets her sights upon a handsome young fisherman named Dugan, the troubled son of an unscrupulous man from the lower-class village of Ganty. A tumultuous love affair soon ensues as they attempt to cross the lines of class segregation, bigotry, and religious differences amid their own internal conflicts.
Collie clings to her dreams of grandeur--- a life of unfettered leisure, travel, and excitement, for she fears to end up like her mother, tied to a kitchen and a house full of children. The rebellion against her mother and her way of life is a constant source of contention between them as she doggedly pursues Dugan, shunning the affections of the blacksmith, Arrick, a more proper, acceptable suitor, favored by Collie's parents.
Down in Ganty, there are two dangerous men of power---a pub master named Barrtel, and Dugan's father, Harlo, cordial enemies that tolerate one another in an uneasy truce. Dugan spends a great deal of time drinking at Barrtel's pub in an effort to escape some of the unspeakable horrors he has been involved with at the hands of his father. As Collie resists becoming her mother, Dugan resists becoming his father while the two young lovers struggle in their rocky, forbidden relationship, and Collie slowly begins to unravel the mystery of a secret past involving Harlo and her own parents.
Set in the mythical realm of Donnel by the sea in the rising spread of Christianity, Hope Flies on Broken Wings delves into two adolescent minds and their individual, personal struggles that draw them together while pushing them apart---two souls seeking redemption, each with a completely different life view of what constitutes hell on earth in this poignant tale of love and loss.