A family saga spanning four generations, three decades, two continents, and one world war.

Tidewater covers the years 1890 to 1925. Andrew and Alice Croft leave a difficult past behind to take up life as large landowners in tidewater Maryland. Living and working on the property are Elijah and Viola Brown, and their precocious daughter, Delphina, along with three other families, one of which has lost three sons to the Great War.

Enlarging the scope of the narrative are the morally adrift sons of Alice and Andrew. One incurs debts and amorous affairs across two continents; the other goes to war seeking adventure and returns with medals bought on the Parisian black market. In love with both since childhood, an adopted sister waits, unsure of herself but ready to take risks.

Completing the cast of protagonists is a Belgian war bride on the brink of suicide, a young stock broker living fast in Gay Nineties New York City, a bohemian artist known for her Greenwich Village salon nights, and a disfigured war veteran running liquor in the early days of Prohibition.

Love comes to the forefront in the lives of both the privileged and the disadvantaged in Tidewater in ways unique to their circumstances. What they look for in each other, what they find, their choices and decision making, is inevitably the task before every human life wishing itself bound to another.