The Day the Falls Stood Still

In 1915, on the verge of her eighteenth birthday, Bess Heath returns home from school to an unfamiliar scene - the elegance of the life she once knew has vanished; her father is jobless and losing hope; her mother is struggling to keep the family afloat; and her once-lively sister, Isabel, is a shadow of her former self. Against her family's strong objections, Bess finds solace with the rough-hewn riverman Tom Cole. Not of their world, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny knack for reading the whims of the falls. As Bess's life becomes more fully entwined with Tom's, she is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family.