When plain, outspoken Yorkshire schoolgirl Marjory Thompson immigrates with her rambunctious family to Canada in 1904, her parents are convinced that fortune awaits in the flat farmland of Manitoba. Before long, the impatient Marjory realizes her parents have got it all wrong: nothing but hard work, loneliness, and boredom lie before them. Desperate to escape, Marjory takes one rural teaching post after another, scrimping and saving, until she can afford to attend university. After graduation, she is employed as a high school principal, a rare feat for a woman in the 1930s. What comes next, at the dawn of the feminist age, is not deserved success but a single act of terrible judgement that will haunt Marjory the rest of her life. With insight and imagination, Amy Boyes brings her great-grandmother’s past alive in this tale of immigration, struggle, and the long reach of history.

Amy Boyes makes her home in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, Josh, and their daughter, Madeline. A pianist and an educator, Amy earned music degrees at Brandon University in Manitoba and the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and performance and pedagogy diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (RCM) and Trinity College in London, UK. As a music festival adjudicator and examiner for RCM, Amy enjoys connecting with young performers throughout Canada. She is also an active volunteer with the Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association. When not teaching in her busy piano studio, or chasing after Madeline, Amy carves out a few minutes, every day, for writing. Her work can be found in a variety of sources such as music teacher periodicals or, most recently, the Humber Literary Review.

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