A coming- of-age story filled with heroism and heartbreak for 13-year-old Acadian Nathalie Belliveau.

Separated from her family during the brutal 1755 expulsion of Acadians, Nathalie escapes and walks halfway across Nova Scotia to safety in Cap-Sable. When the compassionate Amirault family takes her in, she falls for their shy son Ange. But Nathalie's happiness is shattered by another wave of deportations by the British that keep the young lovers apart. Nathalie uses her tenacity and self-awareness to survive as an indentured servant in North Carolina.

Based on the real lives of two Acadian families, the novel is grounded in the historic facts of the Acadian expulsion and their exile in Massachusetts for ten years.