What do a mad queen, a Viking warrior who sounds like Greta Thunberg, and a man-eating jaguar have in common? They all live in the haunted imagination of Tom Galloway, a depressed widower, now retired and unsure what to do with the rest of his life. His book club buddies help him brainstorm possibilities, and Tom finds that the climate crisis stirs his passion.

Tom vows to volunteer with a climate research project – but fails to follow through, stymied by fear of failure and the latest in a series of surreal visions of his own violent death. Tom’s salvation turns out to be Izzy, a college student and climate activist who had joined the book club while in high school at Tom’s invitation. It was a life-saver for the nerdy and lonely Izzy, and she's determined to repay his kindness by helping him find new meaning in his life as a warrior for the planet.