Emma Phillips is a 35-year-old divorcée with an undemanding job, a rustic old house, and a friend who provides all the benefits she needs. She's comfortable, complacent, and accustomed to getting her own way—until she is shipwrecked during a violent storm in the Queen Charlotte Strait off Vancouver Island and is forced to assume temporary guardianship of three traumatized, newly orphaned children.

From the author of The Goat Lady's Daughter comes a moving new story, set against the rugged backdrop of coastal British Columbia, of a woman determined to manage her own destiny, and a child whose own strong nature defies those who would take control of her fate.