Lost In The Valley Of Fort Ross

By: William Ferrier Jr.

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

She rang the bell. And everything changed.

Twelve-year-old Finley is the kind of kid who notices everything and says almost nothing. While her loud, fearless little brother Liam makes friends everywhere they go, Finley hangs back — watching, cataloging, disappearing into the walls. So when her family drags her to Fort Ross State Historic Park on the California coast instead of letting her go to a sleepover, she's furious.

Then a park guide named Maddie leads her to a small, tarnished bell inside a two-hundred-year-old chapel.

One pull of the rope, and Finley wakes up in 1820.

Fort Ross is alive — a Russian trading post on Kashaya Pomo land, where Russian settlers, Alaska Native hunters, and the Kashaya people share a windswept clifftop above the Pacific. Finley can't speak their languages. She doesn't understand their customs. But when she befriends a Kashaya girl named Kalia, she begins to discover that the thing she's always hated about herself — her quietness, her watching, her invisibility — might actually be a gift.

When a violent storm threatens Kalia's life, Finley is the only one who notices she's missing.

Now the girl who never speaks up must find her voice — across three languages she doesn't speak — to save her friend before the rising tide takes her.

Lost in the Valley of Fort Ross is a gripping middle-grade time travel adventure set at one of California's most remarkable historic sites. Woven with real history, multicultural friendship, and a crisis that will keep young readers turning pages, it's a story about discovering that the quiet ones see what no one else does — and that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is show up.

Perfect for fans of the Magic Tree House series, When You Reach Me, and Inside Out and Back Again.

Ages 8–12 Includes real history of the Kashaya Pomo, Russian-American Company, and Alaska Native hunters at Fort Ross, California