The Orphan's Island

When you are alone in the world, how does your heart find its home?
1904: When plucky, red-haired, eleven-year-old Ellen Copley crosses the Atlantic Ocean with her father, it is with a head full of dreams for what the New World will hold for her. Yet within weeks of their arrival in America, her father has abandoned her—leaving Ellen with hateful relatives, alone and terrified for her future.
But then her kind Aunt Rose brings Ellen to stay with her, in their rambling family farmhouse on beautiful Amherst Island, which nestles like a jewel in the blue waters of Lake Ontario.
There Ellen finally begins to find love and acceptance, both from Aunt Rose’s boisterous family, and—as she grows into a beautiful young woman—from the boys next door, Jed and Lucas Lyman. But it’s Jed she’s drawn to… the one with the twinkling eyes, who teases her, and laughs with her, and soon steals her heart…
But does Jed love her back? Because—even though Amherst Island feels like home—Ellen knows she can’t stay there with a broken heart…