When orphaned Bob Wills comes to live next door to the Coker family, the children initially keep their distance. Nellie and Rupert are curious but proud, unaccustomed to welcoming a boy of lesser means into their circle. But Christmas has a way of dissolving barriers, and as the holiday approaches, the Coker children and their new neighbor find themselves drawn into adventures that test their courage and reshape their understanding of friendship. A blind girl named Lilian proves that sight and courage aren't the same thing, and what begins as wary curiosity transforms into something like family. Set against the frosty charm of an English Christmas in the late Victorian era, this is a story about discovering that the people we think we have nothing in common with may become the ones we cannot live without.
