In the summer of 1889, Amelia van den Broek is sent by her brother to the city of Baltimore, much grander and different from her fishing village, to find a suitable match for marriage.

Along with her cousin Zora, Amelia does all the normal things a young woman would do in the city—call on other ladies, have them to tea, gossip about the latest dance and all the fine gentlemen there.

Zora also falls in love, and when Amelia has a vision relating to his death, she eventually confesses it to her cousin, who waves off her fear.

Amelia steps out the door, ready to face the world on her own, only to find Nathaniel waiting for her, having been unable to get there sooner because his ability is hindered by water, and she had put the ocean between them.

Rhona Campbell of the School Library Journal said of it: “The protagonist is a bit of a wet dishrag, the dramatic tragedy that Mitchell's prose so direly portends is disappointingly tame, and the titillation doesn't go beyond searing smooches.