'She is undoubtedly one of the greatest American writers' OBSERVER

'Willa Cather makes a world which is burningly alive, sometimes lovely, often tragic' HELEN DUNMORE

'Her prose has a supple, lit-up sensuality that constantly makes the reader stop and read again as in a fine piece of poetry' MARINA WARNER

At the end of the seventeenth century in Quebec, a French family, the Auclairs, begin a life very different from the one they knew in Paris. On her mother's death, ten-year-old Cecile is entrusted with the care of the household and of her father, Euclid, the town's apothecary.

Two years later, in 1697, Cecile and her father prepare for the long, difficult winter ahead with no word from home. The news of the world they have left behind must wait until spring, when the annual boats from France are able to make their way up the St Lawrence. For her father, it will be a painful exile, but for the young Cecile life holds innumerable joys as old ties are relinquished and new ones are formed . . .