Etta is about to prove to her mother that she matters. She didn't get her chance to rehearse her violin solo but she and her teacher, Alice, know Etta will rip through the piece she's been assigned. Just before she walks on stage she hears her mother and Alice talking. Alice is defending her. Telling her mother it isn't the right time and that Etta deserves some kind of preparation. Then Etta's world explodes around her, Alice is dead and some girl who is a stranger to her is leading her to safety.
Except that Etta is about to drown and be saved and wake up on board ship with Nicholas, a young man with wide shoulders and a lanky physique. Get the picture? The strange girl is about to be passed off as Etta's sister and the two young women will be sailing under the care of Nicholas. He has been tasked by their "grandfather" to bring them hence.
This is a world of privateers and pirates and bloody swashbuckling. It's a world where women have virtually no power other than the rules of society and when those rules are shattered they are left with their own wits to survive.
Etta is the daughter of Rose, and they are one of the very few families left with the ability to time travel. Passages lurk all over the world and travelers have to be savvy about their choices as they hop from century to century.
What does the grandfather want? Who can be trusted? Just how cute is this Nicholas guy? Strains of Outlander may play in your mind and happily Etta is one self-reliant, determined, courageous fabulous young woman. We can count on her to represent us with dignity and some power as she is chooses to get the answers to her questions.
486 pages 978-1484715772 Ages 14 and up
Sequel: Wayferer
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
************ "In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles, but years from home. And she's inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she's never heard of. Until now.
Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods-a powerful family in the Colonies-and the servitude he's known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can't escape and the family that won't let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, his passenger, can find. In order to protect her, Nick must ensure she brings it back to them-whether she wants to or not. Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods' grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home forever."--from the publisher
