THE SISTER'S TALE

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

In a New Brunswick village in 1887, newspapers tell of a gruesome murder, women march for suffrage, and a young widow is drawn into the story of a British home child whose luck has gone from bad to worse.
When her sea captain husband is lost at sea, Josephine Galloway is left with no choice but to turn their once grand home into a boarding house that is kept afloat by the sweat and tears of a curious and not completely compatible collection of women. When Josephine notices wealthy townsmen bidding on a yo ung girl at the annual village pauper auction, she purchases the child to spare her their lechery, and the household expands. As Flora takes her place in this, her latest “family,” she enlists their help in finding the sister she was forced to leave behind in an English work house the only person who will understand the trials she has endured. Complicating Flora's plan, and Josephine's determination to assist, is the presence of a murderer among them.
This is a timeless, riveting story about women who will stop at nothing to find their way in a world that is not always welcoming and to overcome, together, the terrible circumstances they could neither predict nor avoid.

BETH POWNING is the author of numerous bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction. She lives on a 300-acre farm in New Brunswick, Canada.