Frances Greenslade — Shelter

Virago Press (UK) 2011 Paperback, 384pp. Maggie's father is 'Mr Safety'. He knows the woods of Duchess Creek in Northern Canada like the back of his hand, and he has taught his daughter how to survive, how to find and make shelter in all weathers, in any conditions. Along with her sister Jenny and their mother Irene, they are safe from the outside world. When he is killed in a logging accident, Maggie thinks her worst fear has come true, but her father's death is only the first blow in the destruction of her family. Irene struggles to look after her daughters alone. Soon her mother, the one Maggie has never worried about, abruptly drops off her girls in Williams Lake to billet with the gloomy Bea Edwards and her wheelchair-bound husband, Ted. Irene promises she'll be back for them once the summer is over and she has earned more money, but weeks turn to months and then to years. Then the letters stop. When trouble finds the girls for the third time, it comes for Jenny, who is pitched into a situation too frightening to handle. Maggie decides that it's up to her to find Irene and repair their fractured family. (ISBN: 9781844087952). Good.