Two children cross an ocean, two hundred years apart. One is Sam Robbins, a powder monkey aboard HMS Victory, the ship in which Lord Nelson will die a hero's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The other is Molly Jennings, a present-day English girl transplanted from London to America, fighting a battle of her own against loss and loneliness.

This extraordinary time-shifting adventure tells the interwoven stories of Sam and Molly, linked by a mystery. Sam is a farm boy, press ganged to serve in the Royal Navy. In the dangerous world of a warship enduring the Napoleonic Wars, he meets both cruelty and kindness, and survives a fearsome battle whose echoes reach through the years to involve Molly as well. Like him, she has lost her childhood but will find her future, with help from a very unexpected source. Two lives joined forever by the touch of Nelson, the greatest sailor of all time.