Beyond the Wild River
A gorgeous and evocative historical novel
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the author of The House Between Tides, winner of the Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year, comes an atmospheric and stunningly evocative historical novel. Perfect for fans of Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent.
'Maine writes beautifully' THE TIMES
'Riveting' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scotland,1893. Nineteen-year-old Evelyn Ballantyre, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, has rarely strayed from her family's estate in the Scottish Borders. She was once close to her philanthropist father, but his silence over what really happened on the day a poacher was shot on estate land has come between them.
An invitation to accompany her father to Canada is a chance for Evelyn to escape her limited existence. But once there, on the wild and turbulent Nipigon river, she is shocked to discover that their guide is James Douglas, Ballantyre's former stable hand, and once her friend. He disappeared the night of the murder, charged with the shooting.
Evelyn never believed that James was guilty - and her father's role in the killing has always been mysterious. What does he have to hide? In the wild landscape of a new world, far from the constraints of polite society, the secrets and lies surrounding that night are finally stripped away, with dramatic consequences.
*****
'Stunning' Booklist
'Maine's gift of setting the mood shines' RT Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1893, a young woman finds love and danger along Ontario's Nipigon River in Maine's (The House Between Tides) thrilling historical adventure. Nineteen-year-old Evelyn Ballantyre loves her father, Charles, a respected magistrate, and is all the more attached to him because she's never known her mother. But in recent years Charles's business ventures have kept him far from her side, and the close relationship they once enjoyed is but a memory. When he invites her to accompany him on a fishing trip along the raging Nipigon, she jumps at the chance, unaware that their guide will be James Douglas, her father's former stable boy, who was involved in a murder five years previously. Old grudges, crimes, and murderous impulses soon come to the fore as a connection sparks between James and Evelyn. Meticulous research and descriptive passages of lush, beautiful landscapes frame Maine's riveting portrait of a thoughtful young woman who yearns for more than is offered by her station and her gender, and the rough-and-tumble young man who is inexorably drawn to her.
