Colin, an ambitious young New York finance executive, needs to clinch a deal with a wealthy Dubai sheik, who has a weakness for pigeon racing. They make a bargain: the sheik will sign if Colin can get him a particular pigeon, the perfect bird to win the prestigious Barcelona international race. This bird has been trained in Flanders, but the owner refuses to sell at any price. Posing as a school teacher searching for the grave of an ancestor killed in the First World War, Colin travels to the little Flemish village where the pigeon fancier lives and starts to look for something that will separate the bird from its owner. But in the process he falls under the spell of the place and of Isabelle, the pigeon fancier's spirited granddaughter.—anonymous