In a remote Labrador community during the 1960s, Jacinta and Treadway have a child. After the birth, Jacinta and Thomasina, who helped with the birth, decide to keep the baby’s hermaphrodite condition to themselves, but Treadway senses something is wrong with their child. The child, Wayne is taken to the Goose Bay hospital where, at Treadway’s insistence, the baby’s female condition is suppressed through operations and drugs. As Wayne grows, Treadway introduces the boy into his male domain of hunting while Jacinta saddens at the loss of a daughter.
Rose carries a load of baggage that is slowly revealed after her daughter, Juliet tries to commit suicide. She questions what she has done wrong as a mother while defending her actions to her husband, Syd who has done little to support the parenting of their teenage daughter.
This was a well written close look at women who braved the journey by ship to stay in India during British rule. From the beginning right through until India’s independence, we follow women who came to join their husbands or in the hope of getting married. We learn about their journey by sea, their first impressions and their social life. For anyone interested in India during the British Raj, this is an informative read.
After two twins Mara and Aileen, witness their mother’s suicide their father is wild with grief. He blindfolds both girls so they won’t see the worst in the world, causing Mara to become blind and Aileen ‘s eyesight to be damaged. When a Nova Scotia neighbour discovers what he has done to his children, they are separated from their father and each other and it is not until years later that Aileen discovers where her sister is living. She leaves a broken marriage and heads to Dawson City, but when she arrives she struggles to decipher fact from fiction in the tales Mara’s son, Jason spins. Will she ever learn the truth about what happened to her sister?
A well written tale that because of Jason’s twisting of the truth, the ending couldn’t be fathomed until the very last page.
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