Synopsis:
'She was expecting him. She wasn't expecting the heartache that would follow like a cold wind.' Growing up on a dairy farm in the mountains of British Columbia in the 1960s, three kilometres north of the American border, Natalie Ward knew little of the outside world. But she had her family. A family so close and loving that Natalie believed they were the envy of the nearby town of Atwood - particularly her eldest brother Boyer, whom Natalie held especially close to her heart. But Natalie began to question her family's idyllic existence the summer she turned fifteen. The arrival of a soft-spoken stranger, an American draft-dodger called River, would test the morals and beliefs of the family and the community to breaking point. The series of events following that summer day would leave relationships shattered and the Ward family changed forever.
From the Back Cover:
Our cow dog, Buddy, lifted his head, then bolted off the bottom porch step where he had been sleeping in the afternoon sun. He leapt over the picket fence and raced past the barn, a blur of black and white, barking a belated warning.
The longhaired stranger was kneeling in the dust on the road, murmuring quiet words to the growling dog. After a moment he stood and, with Buddy at his side, continued up to the yard, smiling. Mom smiled back, smoothed her apron and started down the porch steps. I hesitated for only a moment before I followed.
She was expecting him.
She was not expecting the heartache that would follow like a cold wind.
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