Returning home to the small seaside community of Lockeport, Nova Scotia, after several years away in teacher's college, Margaret Conrad thought she knew what to expect. Although she is certainly no longer the shy, broken-hearted girl she'd once been, her hometown hasn't changed in generations. Lockeport in 1907 is still as predictable as the tides. What she hadn't counted on, though, is that her first and only love, Joseph Locke, has returned as well ... and she certainly didn't expect that he'd love her still. Unlike most of the local men-whose livelihoods were made out on the waves-Joseph didn't come from a family of fishermen. In a way, this only added to his appeal. She's always held a reverence for the ocean and its bounty. Yet, it's brought her a healthy dose of fear as well. Local men are lost every season due to the mighty ocean's fickle nature as they struggle to pull that bounty from its depths. Adrift now, Margaret is caught between the swirling eddies of life's uncertainty and the draw of long-forgotten dreams. She must decide if she will hold fast and true to the rewarding (but solitary) course she's so painstakingly charted for herself ... or give in to the inexorable riptide of her heart's demands.