June 22, 2014 Think of it, Margaret… Dark skin, a country upbringing-- you would be a curiosity on a visit, but beyond that, you would never be accepted. -- from The Chief Factor's Daughter by Vanessa Winn, Touchwood Editions , c. 2009 As Margaret Work fears herself rapidly approaching spinsterhood, her hopes for marriage and full acceptance into society begin to fade. Her Irish-Metis heritage is a source of insecurity she cannot overcome, despite a respectable social standing established by John Work, the family patriarch, as Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company outpost in Fort Victoria. "A courtship with her, she was painfully aware, would be a one-way passage for Mr. _____. To marry her would also mean marrying the colony. She was born to the country, and to take her back to the Old World would be nearly unthinkable." Even in her admirers, Margaret detects a disconcerting tendency to scrutinize her features and suspects they
Book reviews by the author of "Mimi Power and the I-don't-know-what", "Magnifico" and more.