by Laura McNeal
First published 2017
Aldine McKenna watches her sister convert to Mormonism and sail to America in 1929. Left behind in their Scottish village with only an aunt for company, nineteen-year-old Aldine decides to follow. She lands in New York and answers a newspaper advertisement seeking a teacher for a remote Kansas schoolhouse. The journey takes her to the Great Plains, where drought has destroyed farms and bankrupted schools. Ansel Price, the optimistic man who placed the ad, cannot pay her salary or provide proper housing. With no money to return home and too much pride to admit defeat, Aldine moves in with the Price family. She struggles to find her place among these strangers who regard her with curiosity, suspicion, and growing affection. As Aldine adapts to life on the failing plains, she discovers feelings she never expected. Then a violent storm forces buried emotions into the open, threatening to destroy the fragile bonds she has built in this harsh new world.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Kansas, New York, Scotland
Period: 1929
492 pages · Hardcover · Little A