Even as a child, plain, boyish Annie Revels had everyone's role in life figured out. Everyone's, that is, except her own. Her mother was sickly and needed to be taken care of. Her little sister Rebecca was remarkably beautiful, where Annie was not. Her father was a waterman, a free-looking life Annie deeply envied and could've had, if only she'd been born a son.

Tiny, remote Yaupon Island knows nothing of the partying, gin-soaked Roaring Twenties which grip the rest of the country. The Revels family depends on the coastal waters to make a living, and tragedy is always only a bad...