This is the story of a family suddenly engulfed by tragedy. Set in northern rural Canada, in a small community, we meet the Morrison family, the parents, two sons on the threshold of manhood and two young sisters aged seven and one and a half respectively. Their life is changed utterly when the parents are killed in a road accident and the novel is about how the surviving children cope as a family. Anyone who has ever suffered sudden bereavement will recognise the shock, disbelief, numbness as well as the huge sense of loss which descends on the family as they huddle together for some sort of comfort. The older boys forgo their plans for the future to keep the home together, to support and nurture their two young sisters and prevent the family breaking up. This is a story about love and self-sacrifice - values which seem out of date in today's world where personal fulfilment is seen as the only goal worth pursuing. It may damn the novel to say it is heart warming but what the heck! - it warmed my heart, brought tears to my eyes and made me feel good. Let's have more like it.

Member of Raheny Library Reading Group, Dublin, Ireland

The setting for Mary Lawson's first novel is Crow Lake, Ontario, where the father of the Morrison family of the story settled when he took up a post in the nearby bank. He moved there from the Gaspe peninsula in Northern Ontario and brought with him a deep respect for education which the family's Scottish Presbyterian background had preserved and nurtured through difficult times.

There is a quiet satisfaction and joy in the family when the older son Luke gets a place in a teacher training college. The joy is short-lived, however, when the parents are killed in car accident leaving the four children Luke (19 ), Matt (17), Kate (7) and Bo (1½) orphaned. The story is narrated by Kate who describes the events immediately following the accident through the eyes of her seven years and later relates how the family adapted to their new situation with the temporary help of their Aunt Anne from the Gaspe and their neighbours. Things do not always run smoothly but the boys sacrifice their educational prospects, and provide for the family of four by doing manual work for neighbours. Luke takes over the care of Bo, and Matt and Kate develop a deep friendship, particularly through Matt's initiating Kate into the secrets of insect life in the local ponds. This interest ultimately leads to Kate becoming a professor of Ecology in Toronto University.

The Morrison's neighbour, the Pye family, for whom Luke and Matt worked from time to time, provides a dark contrast to the close relationships of the Morrison family. There is a deep antipathy between the father and sons which eventually leads to a tragic outcome which touches the Morrisons.

When Kate returns to Crow Lake for Matt's son's 18th birthday celebrations, she realizes that the family members have adjusted comfortably to earning their living without the benefit of higher education, and that they are happy and content with their situation.

It is with regret that we come to the end of the story which Mary Lawson has made so heartwarming and interesting and there are very few people who will not re-read the book many times and discover new insights into the story.

Maureen O'Leary
Terenure Library, Reading Group, Dublin, Ireland

This is a beautifully told and poignant story - the story of the Morrison family and how their lives were affected by the sudden death of their parents in a car crash. The main focus is on the narrator, eight year- old Kate, who becomes dependent on her brother Matt as father/mother/mentor, a dependency which almost ruins her life. He awakens in her his interest in nature, thus shaping her future as successful biologist, a future that should have been Matt's, leaving her a legacy of guilt which she cannot resolve on her own and which which eventually threatens Matt's happiness as well. All this is very skillfully worked out. Matt and Luke are combatant yet supportive brothers and Bo, too young to understand what she has lost, is welcome light relief.

It is a study of how guilt can ruin lives; of how ambition, be it for education or land
( in the case of the Pye family), can run through the generations.

In the background is Crow Lake with its supportive neighbours and beautifully observed natural world changing through the seasons. Some of the most striking images in the book are of Matt and Kate studying the wild life in "their" pond.

This is a skillfully-crafted, well written book with well-drawn, sympathetic characters and kept me anxiously wondering to the end if Kate would be able to resolve finally her guilt over Matt or let it ruin her life. An impressive first novel.

Member of Raheny Library Reading Group, Dublin, Ireland