This novel is set at the turn of the century in the North Woods, Canada. The plot starts with an exciting twist as a young woman is found drowned in Big Moose Lake. The novel follows the life of a hardworking farmer’s daughter called Mattie as she tries to grapple with her life as a writer, farmer and new-found love. The story flashes backwards and forwards between chapters with half about her time as a waitress in the Glenmore Hotel (on Big Moose Lake) and the rest when she is a few years younger. While in the Glenmore Mattie makes friends with the deceased woman and is asked to burn her "love-letters". However she is not able to find the chance and gets to know the woman well only after she is dead, by reading the letters…

Meanwhile in the past, Mattie is stuck at home helping her dad on their farm because her mother has died and her brother has left. She has a talent for writing, however, and is accepted into Barnard College, New York: but how will she get there with the little money she has?

I found this book incredibly stale. Although I am sure life can’t be incredibly exciting in the North Woods (that is a horrible assumption!) nothing much exciting happens after the first few pages when the woman is found. It seems to drag on forever and yet not get anywhere, while the same old points continue to come up. When something exciting does come along it is only minor and soon fades away again. As you start to reach the last few chapters you wonder how it will tie up but when the tales finally merge the combination works well.

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