Jane Priddle, a proper young Englishwoman, has lived a sheltered, genteel life. In 1897, she is offered a life-changing opportunity: she will travel to Canada's northwest frontier to search for young Billie Thomm.

Surviving in the gutters of London, England, Billie had acquired the cunning of someone twice his 15 years, but a moment of desperation and his connection to a messy death brought him to the Eastwood Mission Society. Before the law could catch up with him, he became a home child, one of thousands of orphans and beggars shipped to Canada to find better lives. Now he is on the run again-and on his own, just the way he likes it.

As clues to his whereabouts lead Jane north of Fort Edmonton, she encounters a cast of rough-hewn characters, the likes of which she has never known. Some repel, others surprise, and one she is strangely attracted to. Trapped in a wilderness of adventure and horror, brilliant aurora borealis and bitter cold, Jane stumbles into a life bigger than anything she could have imagined.