The novel takes up the story of Dicey Tillerman, now 21, who has dropped out of college despite a scholarship in order to start her own business building wooden sailboats.

To learn the trade, she has worked hard in a series of low-paid jobs in Annapolis and Crisfield and now she has built up a small amount of savings that she hopes will enable her to start realizing her dream.

Maybeth has grown into a beautiful young woman, who has many female friends and is attractive to men - yet she is still studying hard and failing most classes in school.

As she is courted by older men, the novel is haunted by the danger that she could repeat the mistakes of her mother, who left home to pursue an affair with a drifter twelve years her senior.

Sammy is a hardworking young man who has a part-time job pumping gas in a service station; he has learned to take apart engines and helps the Tillermans buy their first car.