This is the true story of Sarah Sidney “Sid” Holbrook (1822–1860) of St. John's, Newfoundland, the daughter of George Papps Holbrook and Ruth Sidney Pearl. In 1831, when Sid was nine years old, an authoritative rap at the door announcing the arrival of strange men and a bailiff waving official-looking papers signalled the end of her idyllic childhood surrounded by upper-class privilege in their big rambling home. George Holbrook and George William Blamey were officers in the Royal Navy who married two Pearl sisters. They and James Pearl, a sibling of their wives, became lifelong friends who survived many sea battles of the European Wars of 1793–1815. When peace came the three pals opened the next chapter of their lives rooted to the land instead of the sea. But good fortune soon abandoned them in the Newfoundland colony, and Sid and her young brother came to spend much of their youth an ocean away from their mother. Her thoughts and feelings have been captured in her private letters and preserved for two hundred years in a sea trunk. Those and more by other family members are dated between 1805 and 1850. Review by Dr. Allan E. Marble, Chair, Medical History Society of Nova Scotia: "The book is very well written by a scholar who has displayed an exceptional ability to carry out research into the records of both Newfoundland and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the author’s characterization of the lives of the upper-middle class members of the Holbrook family members in England, especially of Sid’s uncle, Dr. James Holbrook, the surgeon, is impressive. The appreciation Sid shows in her letters for the generosity of Dr. Holbrook is uplifting. Aiden Holden’s book is a very good example of how a genealogist can uncover important family information from a wide selection of records and tell an interesting story about a Newfoundland girl and her Nova Scotian-born mother who worked together to realize their aspirations."