A smart, spunky woman moves to a new town and is branded an outsider. As soon as she makes some friends, she realizes a small-scale environmental or sociopolitical disaster is about to befall her new home. Meantime, she meets a hot salt-of-the-earth guy. They flirt, fight, and, if she's lucky, fuck. Through dialogue that sounds like a biology textbook interspersed with "you know"s and "see"s for authenticity, she gets him to appreciate the severity of the situation. He in turn explains the working man's point of view and makes her see that everything isn't black and white. Then, with a little work, the crisis is averted, at least for the time being. The end!
I just read Prodigal Summer (which actually mixes the above elements up with three separate plot threads, but believe me, it's all there), and I like Barbara Kingsolver, I really do. I think she has a natural, understated style, and her writing's good but not too good, so you feel like she's this nice, smarter-than-average lady just telling you a story. But jeez, she must be able to write these things in her sleep by now.