Wildwood

By Elinor Florence

A single mother. An abandoned farmhouse. An epic battle with the northern wilderness.

Broke and desperate, Molly Bannister accepts the ironclad condition laid down in her great-aunt’s will: to receive her inheritance, Molly must spend one year in an abandoned, off-the-grid farmhouse in the remote backwoods of northern Alberta. If she does, she will be able to sell the farm and fund her four-year-old daughter’s badly needed medical treatment.

With grim determination, Molly teaches herself basic homesteading skills. But her greatest perils come from the brutal wilderness itself, from blizzards to grizzly bears. Will she and her child survive the savage winter? Will she outsmart the idealist young farmer who would thwart her plan to sell the farm? Not only their financial future, but their very lives are at stake. Only the journal written by Molly's courageous great-aunt, the land’s original homesteader, inspires her to struggle on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Feb 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781459740211

Elinor Florence

Elinor Florence is an author and journalist. Before publishing her bestselling novel, Bird’s Eye View, she edited several daily newspapers and wrote for many publications, including Reader’s Digest Canada. Elinor lives in Invermere, British Columbia.

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Reviews for Wildwood

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is such a joy to find a story that includes so many of the things I love. Cold weather climates, I am fascinated with novels that are set in these climates, how people live and survive. This is set in Juniper, Canada a made up name but meant to represent early colonies such as Peace River, Manning, or Beaver lodge all located in Northern Alberta in Canada.Early homesteaders, Molly inherits from her great aunt an original house and many farming acres in the above location. The stipulation requires Molly to live there for a year. Disappointed in love, now a single mother with a four year old daughter who has selective mutism and needs intensive therapy Molly cannot afford. Feeling she has little choice they travel to Juniper finding a house that has been boarded up and desperately in need of deep cleaning. A house with no electricity nor plumbing.nJournals, Molly finds the journal of her great aunt, reading entries here and there throughout the year. Learning about the difficulties and joys she found in this alien land and climate.Natural medicine and indigenous people. The Cree tribe was invaluable in helping these first settlers survive the long and excessively cold climate. Teaching them the herbs and treatments made from nature, in an area so far from a doctor In the present a young Cree girl, Winona, living on the reservation helps Molly and Bridget, providing company and comfort. Beautiful descriptions of nature and wildlife. Molly and Bridget will both grow in leaps and bounds as they tackle things they never thought they could. There is danger, this is a wild, untamed land. They will meet other hearty people who make this place their home. A wonderful story, quiet with amazing character development and growth. Very well done.ARC from edelweiss.

[cathygeha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wildwood by Elinore FlorenceMolly is down on her luck with time running out when a fortuitous inheritance finds its way to her. The only glitch is that she has to live on the land for a year. Where is the land? Way up north in Canada where it gets very very cold indeed! Living in a home built in the early 1920’s might not sound horrible BUT the house has not been lived in for decades, has no indoor plumbing, is without electricity and relies on wood for heating and cooking. Molly has four year old daughter with issues but still…she believes that living in the house is her only recourse so…off she goes.This is a story of hardship in the present interwoven with the diary entries of Molly’s great aunt who actually moved to the land and settled it with her husband nearly 100 years before. The difficulties both faced were often similar and Molly took courage from what she read in her aunt’s journal. I have always liked stories of the past, what it was like to live in such times and how people managed. I once asked my mother what it must be like to be a pioneer and she told me that living in a country with unreliable electricity, water supply and such put me on par with people living in the past…at least part of the time. The story is well told and done in a way that the reader almost feels they are there. The issues faced were real and made me wonder “what if” – I enjoyed the story and was thankful that all worked out for Molly and her daughter in the end. Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn for the ARC – This is my honest review. 4-5 Stars