In 1815, Isabella Marston, a refined English young lady, is eager to escape her carping mother and constantly quarreling older sisters. Seeing a newspaper advertisement seeking a “lady wife” for a wealthy North American lumberman, she sends a letter and receives a marriage proposal in response. With her maid, her horse, and her dog, she crosses the Atlantic with high expectations, only to receive a heart-wrenching shock on her arrival in the colony of Riverhaven, New Brunswick. Exhibiting the manners of a barbarian, her prospective groom is brawny, bearded, long-haired, and clad in buckskins. His foreman, Fletcher Atkin, wrote the ad and the letters to Isabella, and he draws her unwilling attention despite his reputation as a gambler, drunkard, and lothario. He at least treats her as a gentleman should, and she wonders about his hidden background. As the summer progresses, love blooms in duplicate despite a charging bear, a kidnapping, and a brewing war between lumber barons.

Gail MacMillan has always wanted to be a writer. She was 30 years old when her first book, Forest of Fear, was published for Avalon in 1974. Since then she has gone on to write three novels for Avalon, a variety of articles and stories for magazines in Canada and the United States, and two books on her favorite dog, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. For a 1992 article on this breed, Gail was awarded a Maxwell Medal in New York by the Dog Writers' Association of America for the best article in a canine magazine or newspaper.

Gail's other interests include reading, horses, and canoeing. She currently lives in Bathurst, New Brunswick with her husband, Ron, and two dogs, a Sheltie mix and, of course, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

Gail MacMillan's profile page