Lila Hartwell is a young history enthusiast volunteering at her grandmother's maritime museum. While cleaning the museum's most prized possession-the two-hundred-year-old North Star Compass-she notices a small detail that sends her chasing a secret hidden for generations. The compass is fake. But where is the real one?
Her investigation brings her face to face with two families trapped in a decades-old feud: the Thornes and the Winthrops. With reluctant help from Sam Thorne, a young fisherman carrying his family's painful legacy, Lila uncovers a long-buried maritime tragedy, a missing sea chest, and the truth resting at the bottom of the ocean for sixty years.
In this mystery woven with family bonds, friendship, and the weight of the past, Lila discovers that sometimes the truth is hidden closer than anyone imagines.