Swift River Valley is doomed: set to disappear beneath the waters of the Quabbin reservoir. Communities will be destroyed, lives uprooted, even the dead exhumed. Jeremy Treat is the town minister, a man of deep faith trying to inspire hope in a place destined to be taken from its inhabitants. He is also the husband of Una, a voluptuous eccentric pining for her first love, and father of Jimmy, a seemingly perfect child prodigy. Into this tight-knit family comes Sarianna, a romantic student obsessed by the story of the Valley. Her ensnarement in the secrets and desires of the Treat family is the basis for this stunning gothic novel of sexual awakening, shifting identity, loss and love.