Told in alternating voices, this is the story of two young people: Sam Robbins living in 1803 and Molly Jennings living in the twenty-first century. Sam is a farm boy who is abducted and pressed into naval service. There is a war between Great Britain and France, and sailors are desperately needed. Sam is assigned to the HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar. Molly’s mother has remarried an American after her husband— Molly’s father—is killed in a plane accident. Cooper meticulously erects parallels between the two characters so that the dénouement is satisfying and credible. Author won the Newbery Medal for The Grey King (1976) and Newbery Honor for The Dark Is Rising (1974). lmp

LIVING CENTURIES APART, BUT JOINED IN AN EPIC BATTLE.

Sam Robbins is a farm boy, kidnapped to serve on HMS Victory, the ship on which Lord Nelson will die a hero's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Molly Jennings is a twenty-first-century English girl transplanted to the United States by her stepfather's job, who's fighting her own battle against loss and loneliness.

Two lives that couldn't be more different, two hundred years apart, are linked by a tiny scrap of fraying cloth, tucked into an old book. It draws Molly into Sam's world, to a moment in time that changed history -- a frightening shared moment that holds the key to secrets from the past and hope for the future.