Things are changing for eleven-year-old Alice. Her mother died four years ago, and now the family home where she lives with her father and her Aunt Patience has been sold. Not only that, Alice is heading to boarding school in the wilds of Scotland, while her aunt has taken a job in London to make ends meet. Her father, Barney, is an actor, fun-loving but unreliable, and often away for long periods at a time.

After a rocky start at school, Alice becomes friends with Jesse, a lonely boy who loves heroic stories and longs for adventure, and Fergus, a genius and a rule-breaker. The three children end up assigned to the same team for the school’s legendary orienteering challenge. But when Alice receives a mysterious package from her father in Rome, followed by instructions to meet him on a desolate island, she decides to make some changes to the orienteering route, setting in motion an adventure full of secrets, betrayals, brewing storms, and international thieves.

This story of friendship and survival will pull you right in and won’t let go until the very end!   (New Hampshire Great Stone Face Award, 2021)