Fall River, Massachusetts, 1911. Textile mills were notorious for spectacular conflagrations, and this time three fortunes changed with the drop of a lantern. When the Cleveland Mill burned Helen Sheehan lost her father and her home, Joao Rose was exiled to the rural life of his Portuguese ancestors, and an immigrant's son, Joseph Bartlett took over control of Cleveland and moved to the exclusive Highlands. Set over ten years in New England's foremost textile town back-dropped by W.W.I, this novel paints an intimate portrait of an era of American life and manufacturing on the brink of extinction.
