Banded Together

It’s summer 1999 and the members of the Hamilton-Kellaher clan are on their way to Daybreak, their family cottage on Lake Pemichangan, Quebec. With his newly minted driver’s licence, sixteen-year-old Connor drives his step-sister, Francis, and their chosen brother, Jesse, to the lake. Last fall, after learning that Jesse was homeless, dying from leukemia and in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, Connor had organized a donor drive at his school. To everyone’s amazement, his mother, Fiona, turned out to be a perfect match. Not just perfect, but a blood relation! As the young people forge stronger bonds, and Connor woos the U.S. Ambassador’s daughter next door, Fiona suspects Jesse’s late mother, who turned out to be her long-lost adopted sister, is also related to the local Algonquin First Nation. To prove the familial link, Fiona must unearth a family secret long hidden from her by her mother. As Fiona homes in on Jesse’s link to his Indigenous mother and her own adopted sister, all will learn that family is far more than just biology and DNA.