Thirteen-year-old Molly, who has recently moved from present-day London to Connecticut with her family, longs for home. While visiting a bookstore, she is drawn to an edition of Robert Southey's Life of Nelson, which has an unusual artifact secreted inside. In alternating chapters, Cooper tells a second story, set in the early 1800s, about an 11-year-old English lad, Sam, who is captured by a press gang and taken to serve on HMS Victory. Two years later, wounded during the Battle of Trafalgar, Sam tends dying Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson.

In the present-day narrative, Molly returns to England for a week and visits the restored Victory. Overcome by powerful sensations, she finds herself channeling Sam's experiences during the fateful battle. Later, Molly realizes the nature of the tie between herself and Sam and what she must do to set things right for both of them.

Cooper uses a present-tense, third-person narrative to tell Molly's story, while Sam's unfolds in past-tense, first-person reflections. Both tales are so involving that readers will find themselves reluctant to let go of one narrator and switch to the other at a chapter's end. Seamlessly weaving details of period seamanship into the narrative, Cooper offers a vivid historical tale within the framework of a compelling modern story.