Tom North is one of the eight North children, who together with the ten Beardsley children, became the family that was featured in the 1968 film, Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, and again in the 2005 version starring Rene Russo and Dennis Quaid. The book begins in the 1950s on Whidbey Island, Washington, where Tom's mother, Helen North, became a widow when she was just thirty years old and pregnant with her eighth child. Not long after, Helen North met and married Frank Beardsley, a man with ten children and the North children were adopted and their names changed to Beardsley. But it wasn't one big happy family, as the movie depicted. When Tom finally left home, he traveled on a journey of survival, self-discovery, and healing. Years later, miraculously led his family in counseling sessions where shocking truths were revealed, he came full circle as he reclaimed his father's name and was finally, True North.