Review by Booklist Review
Set in the rugged beauty of rural British Columbia, Greenslade's captivating novel opens in late 1960, when sisters Maggie and Jenny live with parents Patrick and Irene. Though her family provides a nurturing home, young narrator Maggie is often plagued with anxiety that tragedy is just around the corner. Maggie's worst fears are realized when Patrick is killed in a work-related accident. Left as sole provider, Irene soon decides to leave the girls with an old family acquaintance, with the assumption that she will return for her daughters once she secures steady work. As weeks stretch into months, and Irene's correspondence eventually halts, the sisters begin to accept that they have been abandoned. Maggie and Jenny try to move on with their new lives until unexpected circumstances leave Maggie with no choice but to search for Irene and, with the help of others, journey to uncover the true answers behind her mother's unexplained departure. In this unhurried saga, Greenslade finely captures Maggie's maturing vulnerabilities while exploring well-groomed themes of family and love, and the meaning of home.--Strauss, Leah Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Greenslade's beautiful debut novel (after the memoir By a Secret Ladder) chronicles the struggles of sisters Maggie and Jenny as they attempt to make sense of a life without parents in rural Duchess Creek, Canada, in the 1970s. After their father dies in a tragic logging accident when the girls are young, Maggie and Jenny's mother drops them off with friends, and never returns. As weeks bleed into months that pool into years, Maggie and Jenny grow into very different teenagers, though both girls labor on with the memory of their beloved father and the persistent hope that one day their mother might return. Maggie, the narrator, finds comfort in local loner Vern George-with whom she builds makeshift shelters in the woods-and his kind Uncle Leslie. When Jenny gets pregnant and is shipped off to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home for Unwed Mothers, Maggie takes it upon herself to locate their prodigal mother-or at least uncover her fate-and build a true shelter wherein Maggie and Jenny might reconstitute the loving family they once had. Agent: Denise Bukowski, the Bukowski Agency. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This quiet but powerful first novel feels like the best sort of campfire story-slow to build, with flickering flashes of insight mixed with a slightly ominous foreboding and elements of native folklore. Set in the Chilcotin region of northern British Columbia, it tells the story of two sisters, Jenny and Maggie, who grow up without running water, electricity, and many other comforts except the love of their parents, Irene and Patrick, and the beauty of the natural world around them. When Patrick dies in a logging accident, Irene leaves her daughters to board with a neighbor in Williams Lake while she searches for work. Her letters dwindle, then stop. The girls finally realize that they have been abandoned and that it is up to them to build the shelter-both physical and emotional-to sustain themselves as they move into adulthood. Maggie is a strong, resourceful heroine intent on finding out what happened to her mother. VERDICT This moving novel is an easy choice for book clubs, particularly those interested in learning more about the Pacific Northwest.-Christine Perkins, Bellingham P.L., WA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
