Lesley Crewe

In a Cape Breton family of black sheep, Mary is pure as the driven snow. She is patient and kind with her alcoholic grandmother and volatile mother....

The story begins with Nell, the “spinster on the hill” near St. Peter’s, Cape Breton. Scarred by her own childhood, she swears she could never love a child and that she will never marry, denying herself a life with the man she loves....

The main character is born in 1894. The book contains her memoir, so the action goes back and forth in time, including Emmeline's childhood, through World War One and World War Two and up to "present day," which is 1968-1969.

Globe & Mail bestselling Lesley Crewe's new novel brings listeners to 1960s Montreal & features a nosy would-be child detective searching for the truth about her mother.