SON OF FORTUNE

It is 1866, Aiden Lynch is sixteen years old, alone in the world and on the run after killing a man. It was an accident - he was caught stealing a smallpox vaccine for his Indian friends - but Aiden knows his only option is a quick exit.

Aiden makes his way to San Francisco and his fortunes shift when he befriends Christopher Worthington, the 18-year-old son of a wealthy businessman. After a lifetime of poverty and starvation, Aiden falls easily into the luxurious new lifestyle. Then one evening in a high stakes poker game, Christopher and Aiden win a ship, "Raven", from a strange, tormented man. The Raven is a ship that trades in Peruvian guano - a trade of which the boys know little except that it is extremely profitable. Both are eager to make their fortunes, but when the friends arrive in Peru, they are horrified. The Chinese guano workers are all slaves, forced to work in the most horrendous conditions. Most die within one year. Many kill themselves instead by jumping off the cliffs.

Stakes are high for Aiden and Christopher. Big moral questions vie with hard economic realities. When one slave, Jian Zhang, attempts to escape, Aiden fails to help him. Guilt-ridden, Aiden seeks out the man's sister, Lijia, back in San Francisco: a girl who was brought from China to marry a powerful silk merchant. Aiden falls in love with Lijia, but interracial marriage is forbidden by law and any relationship between them is impossible. Aiden begins another high-stakes game when he decides to help her escape, planning to flee with her to Hawaii, but as the ship is about to sail, he receives startling news that forces him to make another painful and difficult decision.

Victoria McKernan is the author of SHACKLETON’S STOWAWAY (Knopf, 2005), her first young adult novel, which was a New York Public Library Best Book, a Texas Lone Star Reading List Selection, a National Council for Social Studies/Children's Book Council 'Notable Book', and was nominated for multiple awards, including the 2008 Sequoyah Book Award, the 2008 Black-Eyed Susan Book Award, the 2008 Nutmeg Teen Book Award, the Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Award, the 2008 Pacific Northwest Young Reader’s Award and the 2009 Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award. Her follow-up, THE DEVIL'S PAINTBOX, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and nominated for the Garden State Teen Book Awards, the South Carolina children’s choice award, the 2011 Utah Beehive Book Award and the 2010 Spur Award. McKernan is also the author of THE MOSQUITO WAR (as V.A. MacAlister – Tor, 2001), which deals with international conspiracies to control a cure for malaria that comes from an underwater plant, as well as four mystery/thrillers for adults including POINT DECEPTION (Carroll & Graf, 1992) and OSPREY REEF (Carroll & Graf, 1990).