The Quarryman’s Girl
Melanie Forde
Genre
Historical
Publication Date
21/07/2022
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About the Book
Life is winding down for French Canadian immigrant Rose Dowd. She isn’t fighting the flow until Fate forces her to gear up for yet another chapter. Much like her adopted country, as it stakes out a new international role in World War II, Rose must reinvent herself. Quickly. Before she can move forward, however, she needs to absorb lessons from her past, by channeling her former persona as the spunky Quarryman’s girl, by reexamining her culture shock and parental abandonment, and by mending a long-standing rift with her sister Isabelle.
Integral to Rose’s journey are her sharp-tongued sister Izzy; her perpetually worried son Vince, a resourceful shipyard worker; her long dead Métis mentor Mère Agathe; her bright and bubbly, but sickly granddaughter Netty; and Nate, “The Ragman’s Grandson,” a club-footed, pre-law student dreading his future. Follow these unforgettable characters from the 1880s to the 1940s, Travel from the hard-scrabble pig farms of Quebec to the granite quarries of Quincy (Massachusetts); from the frozen St. Lawrence River to the deep-channel Fore River, launching pad for some of World War II’s most famous warships.
Book Excerpt
In her dream she was back in Quebec. Not at the farm, but in a forest clearing, in mid-winter. Although the snow was hip deep, Rose recognized the clearing. Mère Agathe had taken her there many times, in spring, summer, and fall, to gather herbs to heal and mushrooms and roots to eat. It was a magical place.
Turning full circle at the center of the clearing, Rose could see nothing but hemlock, tamarack, and jack pine. If she lay on her back, the tops of all those giant conifers would converge in one perfect point. Staring at the dark green wall encircling her, she felt so small. Not because she was a child. Because she was a mere human. A mere human, all alone in the northern wilderness. Her sense of awe gradually faded, to be replaced by washes of panic. Her heart began skipping beats. A pulse throbbed inside her upper abdomen. Nausea restricted her throat. Her breathing became shallow…
Her peripheral vision picked up a quiver in the drooping, snow-encrusted hemlock branches to her right. The quiver grew to a tremble, then a convulsion, as a figure emerged from the green wall.
“Jésus, Marie, Joseph!” Rose exclaimed. She relaxed a little—but only a little—when she recognized Mère Agathe, swathed in a woolen blanket whiter than the snow.
A bony index finger emerged from the blanket and wagged at Rose. “Hard times coming, little one. And you not ready, eh? High time you get ready, no?”
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About the Author
Melanie Forde
Melanie Forde grew up hearing fanciful tales about her voyageur forefathers swaggering through 17th-century Quebec, while her Métis foremothers parsed the mysteries of the natural world. It was only a matter of time before she mined those memories for a novel. It was high time that she set her characters in the gritty hometown that started her own journey: Quincy, Massachusetts. She’d like to think she inherited some of the earlier generations’ resilience, joie de vivre and attunement with Mother Nature. She credits both her French Canadian and Irish ancestors with the storytelling gene that inspired four previous, character-driven novels. Although she now lives in the Virginia mountains, far from both Quebec and Quincy, she sometimes hears ghostly sled dogs howling softly amid the moonshadows that dapple the snow.
Also by Melanie Forde:
• Hillwilla
• On the Hillwilla Road
• Reinventing Hillwilla
• Decanted Truths
