Beyond the Wild River

April 10, 2017
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.

April 1, 2017
Evelyn is thrilled when her father decides to take her to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Even if the trip is prompted by improprieties on her part and though her father is sure to be distracted by his business dealings, Evelyn is determined to enjoy this chance to see more of the world beyond her father's Scottish estate. After the fair, the two embark on a fishing excursion in the Canadian wilderness, where Evelyn is surprised to find that one of their guides is a young man from her father's estate who was dismissed five years earlier under suspicious circumstances. The mystery only deepens when her father forbids her from betraying recognition of the boy who was once a valued friend. As the group penetrates deeper into the wild, the strain of the imposed secrecy grows as events, both unforeseen and orchestrated, lead them closer to a final revelation and a shocking resolution. Maine's (The House between Tides, 2016) beautifully detailed descriptions of the American hinterlands provide a stunning setting for this historical tale of intrigue and suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)