The Sister's Tale by Beth Powning

A novel of orphans and widows, terror and hope, and the relationships that hold us together when things fall apart.

With murder dominating the news, the respected wife of a New Brunswick sea captain is drawn into the case of a British home child whose bad luck has turned worse. Mortified that she must purchase the girl in a pauper auction to save her from the lechery of wealthy townsmen, Josephine Galloway finds herself suddenly the proprietor of a boarding house kept afloat by the sweat and tears of a curious and not completely compatible collection of women, including this English teenager, Flora Salford. Flora's place in her new family cannot be complete until she rescues the missing person in her life, the only one who understands the trials she has come through and fresh horrors met since they were separated years before.

Reconnecting with characters of Beth Powning's beloved The Sea Captain's Wife, The Sister's Tale is a story of women finding their way, together, through terrible circumstances they could neither predict nor avoid, but will stop at nothing to overcome.
 

Paperback, 328 pages

Published May 25, 2021

 by Knopf Canada

4/5 stars

The Sister's Tale is a vivid picture of life for women in the late 1800's. Women lacked rights and left to the decision making of men, men controlled their lives.  The suffragette movement was just starting.

The characters were a mixed lot that included 2 girls who came from England as part of the Home Child Program.

This was an interesting story, maybe slow at times.  Frustrating in parts where the treatment of women is shown.  Heartbreaking in the treatment of these girls. Encouraging to watch women begin to take a stand.

The Sister's Tale is a journey for the women in this book.  A journey of healing through loss, healing through pain and guilt, healing through injustices and being brave enough to accept, change and take a stand.

Beth Powning is a new to me author.  She is Canadian and with a Canadian setting I was anxious to read this book. I have a couple of her previous books and I look forward to reading more.

This book is part of my 2021 Reading Off My Shelf Challenge #57

A Measure of Light by Beth Powning

In her most dramatic and ambitious novel yet, bestselling author Beth Powning re-imagines the life of Mary Dyer, a Quaker who defied death to champion religious freedom during America's earliest years.

Set in 1600s New England, A Measure of Light tells the story of Mary Dyer, a Puritan who flees persecution in Elizabethan England only to find the Puritan establishment in Massachusetts every bit as vicious as the one she has left behind. One of America's first Quakers, and among the last to face the gallows for her convictions, Mary Dyer receives here in fiction the full-blooded treatment too long denied a figure of her stature: a woman caught between faith, family and the driving sense that she alone will put right a deep and cruel wrong in the world. 

This is gripping historical fiction about a courageous woman who chafed at the power of theocracies and the boundaries of her era, struggling against a backdrop of imminent apocalypse for women's rights, liberty of conscience, intellectual freedom and justice. 

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published March 10th 2015 by Knopf Canada 

personal libary

****

Beth Powning is a 'new to me' author.  I first heard about her via a Sandra Gulland newsletter and then again when Reading the Past did a post on Canadian authors.

The cover is so complying, mysterious and rather haunting, screaming 'read me, read me!'

I knew nothing of Mary Dryer's life before reading this book.  I knew how the Quaker's/Friends were driven out of England but didn't totally grasp the prosecution taking place in New England.  With A Measure of Light the author painted a vivid and emotional picture, which showed the author's knowledge of this time period.  Visualizing what was taking place wasn't hard, Beth Powning has a unique writing style and it wasn't hard to get lost in this book. 

The life of Mary Dryer begins in England and continues in America.  Being part of the early settlers in New England was a struggle in and of itself, but add the judgements especially in regards to religion only made for conflict after conflict.  I liked Mary in one sense, seeing her commitment to what she believed in but other times I would have liked to know more of her thought process as to why she did certain things (ie stay in England so long).  I could sympathize with her reluctance to fully commit and love her children and the reasoning behind that. (though could it have been postpartum depression also?). 

All in all I really enjoyed this book, this story has stayed with me long after I finished reading it. Definitely an author I would recommend and read more of.