In Jumping The Stream, Katie Grant has just inherited a two hundred year old house from a great-aunt she barely remembers. When Katie catches her boyfriend, Todd, in bed with her best friend, Lauren, she decides to quit her reporting job at the San Francisco business weekly, leave her cruddy apartment, and move across the country to the Connecticut colonial—against the fervent and unexpected objections of her mother. The old house holds a few surprises for thirty-five year old Katie, however.
In the house, Katie discovers the journals of her ancestor, revolutionary war widow Libby Hutchins. Libby proves to be a young, courageous woman who faced war, widowhood, and even rape and murder—in short, she was successful at everything Katie consistently fails at: finding love, acting with courage, and overcoming trauma. Katie’s loneliness and dejection deepen until she wanders off to the local chapel for Christmas Eve service—her first time in a church since she turned eighteen.
Katie’s salvation comes not from the minister but from his sister, Jean Walsh, who instantly fills Katie's "best friend" vacancy. When ex-friend Lauren drops in for a surprise in-person apology, however, Katie is forced to take a critical look at her life, the feelings she’s been ignoring, and her own self-image. Taking a walk in the woods to clear her mind, she happens upon a stream she knew as a child and comes to understand her great-aunt’s advice: She must have the courage to cross the stream to know what lies on the other side. Finding that courage for the first time, she realizes that she has finally found the true love she’s sought all her life, in the form of a very unexpected person.
