Book description
Recently widowed Rebecca McKenzie, a successful Vancouver
businesswoman, returns to small-town Hope River after an absence of 30
years to attend her mother's funeral. Estranged from her father and two
older siblings, she's left a brutal childhood and a psychopathic
grandfather behind. She expects her visit home to be short. But then she
discovers the diaries written by her mother, a British war bride with a
young baby who came to Canada to join a husband she scarcely knew.
Rebecca finds her heart wrung by her mother's story. Meanwhile, a young
girl has gone missing, and the suspicions of the townspeople fall on
Rebecca's handsome, charming brother Jimmy. Before long, violence
threatens and Rebecca must put aside some long-held grievances to
understand the crime. This debut novel will appeal to readers of
Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs and of Pip Granger's Not All Tarts
Are Apple and Trouble in Paradise, evoking admiration, respect, and
sympathy for members of The Greatest Generation, both English and
Canadian. Well-crafted storytelling and an evocative setting make for
a rewarding debut from Canadian newcomer Delany. Prodigal daughter
Rebecca McKenzie, a widow and thriving Vancouver executive, returns to
Hope River, her suffocating Ontario hometown, for the first time in 30
years, to attend the funeral of her mother, the only family member from
whom she's not estranged. While she stays tethered via the phone lines
to her office, she struggles to resolve old grudges with her older
siblings, further complicated by her brother's possible involvement with
a young woman's disappearance. The extra time at home with her seemingly
forlorn father reacquaints her with her family in the present; 60 years
of her mother's diaries give her a chance to see that things in Hope
River aren't how she remembers them and possibly were never really what
she thought they were. The diary narrative, presented in alternating
chapters, is especially poignant, chronicling the hard life of a young
English war bride trapped in the isolation of Canada, where her new
father-in-law is as cold and vicious as the winters. The only drawback
is the secondary characters--"cartoonish villains and
too-good-to-be-true allies--"who detract from Delany's otherwise
skillful and layered depictions. Having taken early retirement from
her job as a systems analyst in the high-pressure financial world, Vicki
Delany is settling down to the rural life in bucolic Prince Edward
County, Ontario where she rarely wears a watch.
