Choosing: 1940–1989

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Should Alyssa follow her heart or her mind? Set in the mid-1960s, Alyssa’s young life is scarred by the death of her brother, her father’s racism, her mother’s abuse, and her parents’ tumultuous marriage, which make her eager to venture off on her own. But the ghosts of the past haunt her and despite Alyssa’s successes, the future she had envisioned does not unfold as anticipated.

The Reluctant Author

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At fifty-seven years of age, Laurine Schaffer decides it’s time for her to follow her childhood dream of writing the story of her German Lutheran ancestors who fled Russia and immigrated to Canada in 1892. Growing up in an impoverished dysfunctional home environment, she realized in her adolescence that she must be pragmatic and pursue a profession that would have the potential of a sustainable career path. At seventeen, Laurine chooses to enrol in a traditional Registered Nurse training program that is affordable and provides room and board. During three years of living in a residence with other young women, she realizes her perceptions of life and people are dramatically different from many of her classmates. Although Laurine forges a successful vocation as a college professor, with the passage of time, she acknowledges that she is not being true to herself, or to her lifelong aspiration. Following an epiphany in an abandoned family cemetery on the original ancestral homestead, Laurine begins to write as a catalyst for a personal healing journey even as she fervently proclaims her reluctance to become an author.

Lords and Lepers

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Six-year-old Francine Stonehenge lives with her parents near the ocean in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island when the unthinkable happens: both her parents drown. Her aging uncles, whom she has never met, take her by bus, ferry, and train to live with them on their sheep farm in Manitoba. As she settles into her new home, Francine remains traumatized by the death of her parents, for which she feels responsible. Even the pristine peace and stillness of the prairies doesn’t keep her recurring nightmares at bay. With the loving support of her uncles and new stepmother, Francine builds friendships and before long, becomes one of a foursome with Cassandra Jamison, Jessica Yang, and Hope Harding. This epic prairie saga tells stories of bullying, elopement, prodigious talent, fraudulent greed, heartbreak, death, joy, and deep love.

As the girls lose their innocence and mature into young women, they forge lifelong friendships; share the pinnacles of success; the depths of despair; and, experience how all too often people are valued for what they have or what they do, rather than for who they are.

Thriving: 1920–1939

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In the second book of Corinne Jeffery’s Understanding Ursula trilogy, Gustav Werner resumes his insatiable quest to acquire more prime farmland. No one is more surprised than he when his hand is forced and his future reshaped. Will he be able to overcome steadily deepening sorrow, increasing family troubles, and Mother Nature? Get a sneak peek!

Arriving: 1909–1919

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Engaging, enveloping, and emotional, Arriving: 1909–1919 is the first book in the Understanding Ursula series, which chronicles eighty years of Canadian history through the eyes of the Werners, a family of German Lutheran pacifists who fled Russia to pioneer the windswept Saskatchewan prairie. Get a sneak peek