Emma Phillips is a 35-year-old divorcee 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 and 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.