As a 28-year-old farmhand, John Gauthier falls in love with both the farmer's wife and her sister, forcing them each to face the question: Do I follow my heart or do the right thing for my family? In an attempt to right an impossible situation, John leaves the hardscrabble dairy farm and turns to the church, becoming a Roman Catholic priest. But as the head of Sacred Heart parish he struggles with a church council more interested in getting bodies in the seats than helping the needy. Here John faces new questions: How do people keep faith in God when bad things happen to good people? And, what happens when faith, or love, is not enough?

Following the eighty-year arc of John's life between 1929 and 1982 in rural Vermont, Some Things Aren't Meant to Be is a love story, a coming-of-age story, a story about faith in God, and a celebration of literature and writing.