Marianne Neumann has one goal in life: to find her lost younger sister, Sophie. When Marianne takes a job being a putting agent using the Children’s Aid Society in 1858 NY, she not only hopes to provide children an improved life but looks for to find whether Sophie ended up leaving the town with an orphan train.

Andrew Brady, her fellow agent on her behalf first placing trip, is a former schoolteacher who comes with an easy method using the children-firm but tender and funny. Underneath his attractive charm, though, seems to linger a grief that won’t proceed away-and a key from his history that he helps to keep hidden. As both team up placing orphans amid little railroad towns in Illinois, they end up growing ever closer . until a shocking tragedy threatens to upend almost all their function and change one of their lives permanently.