Geoffrey Hernshaw has left the high life in London to help his brother Robert with a scrub farm in Wairangi. Despite the difficulties the new world provides, Geoffrey finds friendship with Eve Milford, the daughter of the town's store keeper. Their similar interests and provocative conversations on evolution and religion has Geoffrey hoping for more than just friendship. Eve however, has another more aggressive suitor in Mr. Fletcher, the local clergyman and Geoffrey has an enemy, one with a secret that promises to be his undoing. Satchell's second novel The Toll in the Bush gives intrigue, scandal, drama and romance set against the striking backdrop of the Hokianga.