Book excerpt: Jack Buck, a fifteen-year-old from Northwest Florida, is an average-looking guy with brown eyes, little bulb of a nose, strong eyebrows, his face topped with wavy dark brown hair, worn kind of long. His life is anything but average. A year ago, his father disappeared, and now his mother has died, leaving Jack and his sister Annie as orphans. Following clues left in a series of cryptic letters, Jack realizes he must find the one person who might still want him. He is the only one who believes his father isnt lost to this world after disappearing in the West Pacific while on expedition to prove the widely derided theory in ancient astronauts. Believed to have colonized earth at the dawn of history, these aliens left their mark in the form of monuments and edifices, the pyramids of Egypt only being the best known, created with powers not yet discovered by man. Early humans memorialized these visits in myriad sculptures and edifices unearthed by archaeologists. Jacks fathers final communication from a Pacific island hinted hed found proof these visitations actually occurred. Armed only with the belief in his heart that his dad is still alive, Jack retraces his fathers path from Florida to the far-flung Pacific with only scant hints as to his whereabouts. Jack begins his journey as a stowaway on the Lady Jane heading out of New Orleans for Jamaica. Will faith and determination be enough to save Jack from the same fate his father?