The Missing Eagles of Winter Cove

Jillian Sullivan is a fourteen-year-old girl who has earned a place on the San Diego, California Rolling Breakers surfing team and dreams of fun days ahead. When she gets home from try-outs her mother crushes her plans. She explains to Jillian that she is ill and the doctor wants her to rest so she is sending Jillian to Alaska to her meet her grandmother, Mildred Sullivan. Jillian is outraged and begs her mother not to send her but her mother insists it is time for her to meet her relatives. When Jillian asks who the other relatives are, her mother ignores her. Within three days Jillian leaves behind the world she knows and lands in Ketchikan, Alaska's airport. She feels like a piece of lost luggage. Her grandmother arrives and they leave on a floatplane to fly to Winter Cove on Prince of Wales Island to her grandmother's cabin. Jillian is determined to hate the whole experience. The cabin is small, no indoor toilet, and worst of all, there is no T. V. Jillian is doomed to a miserable summer. Jillian hates the scary, wet rainforest, she dislikes her bossy grandmother who makes her do endless chores. As the days unfold Jillian is curious about the mysteries around her. Why are the eagles disappearing and Tony the ranger doesn't know who is poaching them? The neighbor boy Chom openly hates her and yet he doesn' really know her. Morris the pilot seems to show up in odd places at odd times, but he's a good pilot and kept the plane from crashing as he flew Jillian and her grandmother to Winter Cove that stormy day. She has dreams of flying with an eagle who has a human face. Most of all, Jillian wants to know where her grandma goes on errands out in the woods. Is she the poacher?Jillian sets out to solve these mysteries. With her strong-will and know-it-all attitude, she faces dangerous situations. One rainy night she is determined to follow her grandma on her nightly errand. Jillian tries to keep her in sight but stumbles and loses the trail. After a long, dangerous night Jillian discovers the answers to all her questions and finds a place in a family she never knew she had. No longer does she feel like lost luggage.