In The Shadow of Eagles

Jillian is a fourteen year-old girl who lives in San Diego with her mother. Her plans for a summer of surfing is disrupted one evening when her mother, who is very ill, informs her that she must spend the summer in Alaska with her grandmother who lives in a remote cabin on an island in Southeast Alaska. Up to this moment, Jillian’s mother had never mentioned the grandmother.

Overnight, Jillian is cast into the foreign environment of a spooky, dark, wet rainforest. One neighbor boy hates her for some reason, an odd float-plane pilot keeps showing up at strange times, the Forest Service ranger realizes eagles are disappearing and suspects someone is a poacher. Jillian’s grandmother disappears on secret errands, and one time in town a strange man calls out Jillian’s name.

In trying to fit in, Jillian’s know-it-all attitude keeps those around her from being friendly. She tries to solve the puzzles surrounding her: Is her grandmother the poacher, why does the neighbor boy hate her, and who was that strange man who called out her name?

In the end, Jillian saves the day when an otter leads her one dark rainy night to a cabin in the forest. She solves the mysteries and discovers the family she had always longed for.