Riverstones — Michelle Kelly

In New Zealand in the heady gold rush days of the 1860s, men went missing and were never found. Some drowned, some starved, some simply disappeared never to be seen again. Mary Healey finds herself alone in a new country with six children. After trekking across the province searching for her missing husband Jim, she finally gives up looking for him and discovers a new place to call home. She purchases the Welcome Home Hotel, and posing as a respectable widow, runs a successful establishment with the aid of her three daughters, Annie, Meg, and Kitty. But the past refuses to remain buried and surfaces only to rip open barely healed scars. With the help of a young priest, Mary reluctantly embarks on a journey that is harder than traveling from the other side of the world, a journey of learning to forgive and love again. A story of love, loyalty, and betrayal, Riverstones is a passionate story of a family who learn when all else is lost, love remains.