[citation needed] Historically, John White, the leader of the venture, sailed home to London for supplies and then returned three years later to find no trace of the hundred colonists he'd left in Virginia except the word "Croatoan" carved in a post.

Freshly married and newly pregnant when she boards the ship, Elenor longs to explore and paint pictures of the New World, as her father has done, but her dreams are frustrated by her status as John White's daughter - not his son.

Margaret Lawrence, her bold young servant, blazes her own path to independence as a member of the struggling colony that settles on Roanoke Island.

The adventures of Elenor and Margaret begin in Elizabethan London, cross the Atlantic, pass through the Caribbean, and climax in the Outer Banks region of North America.

Mary Kay Bird-Guilliams of Library Journal praised the book, writing, ""The invented portions are believable, including the ending--you can debate the details, but it seems quite logical.