Storm Child — Brenda Bellingham

In the warm springtime of 1831, Isobel Macpherson cools her feet in the flowing water of the North Saskatchewan River. Nearby, York boats move northward in procession, carrying furs to the trading posts on Hudson Bay.

Soon, however, the skies began to darken for Isobel. The daughter of a Scottish father and a Peigan First Nation mother, her heart is pulled in two directions. She hates that her father has returned to Europe and so moves to live with her Peigan grandparents; there she longs for her European education and her old friends. Caught up in the ongoing struggles between the Peigan and their Cree adversaries, Isobel struggles to stay alive. At the same time she must learn to listen to her heart, and to take the best from both of her worlds.

Set against a vivid portrait of the Canadian West in the 1830s, Storm Child recounts one young woman's fierce struggle to understand who she is.