If Tenderness Be Gold is set in 19th-century and early 20th-century northern Ontario and Manitoba. An Irish mother, an Italian herbalist, and a Scottish midwife come together on the night of a difficult birth, and the result of their union has effects that echo through the generations.

Eleanor Albanese is an award-winning writer, artist, playwright and filmmaker living in Thunder Bay, Ont. Her work has been published by Innana Publications, Playwrights Canada Press, Burning Books Press, Arctic Journal, as well as numerous journals and magazines. Many of her plays have been produced and/or toured extensively throughout Canada. The Novena Sisters was produced and aired nationally by CBC radio and her recent play Night Wings was produced by Superior Theatre Festival. If Tenderness be Gold is her first novel.

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Eleanor Albanese's debut novel, If Tenderness Be Gold, is a beautiful tapestry, woven on a loom formed by the waters of Black Bay and the boreal forests of northern Ontario, its warp strung by a mother whose loneliness and love for her child dared her to befriend an outsider.
-Jean E. Pendziwol, author of The Lightkeepers Daughter.

If Tenderness Be Gold is a poetic, painterly novel about the mysteries of family - about generational memory and all its gifts and burdens. Albanese's writing is powerful magic.
-Natalie Morrill, author The Ghost Keeper.