This marks the second time Jesse Francis and I have collaborated to explore an aspect of Prince Edward Island history. Our first book—Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island (2013)—won three prizes. We hope this new work, which presents aspects of the history of the Mi’kmaq along with those of French, Acadian, and British colonists, will be welcomed. We think it important to bring together—rather than separate—the many strands of our shared past.
Though published more than 60 years ago—and therefore a little dated—this study remains highly useful. Clark opens with the Island’s natural geography and then looks at how its resources were used by the Mi’kmaq and subsequent settlers of Acadian, Scottish, Irish, Loyalist, and English backgrounds. The book’s 155 maps and 16 tables illustrate the distribution of the population by area and origin over time and the evolution in crops and livestock from the early 18th to the mid-20th centuries. Readers wanting more recent historical and geographical essays should check out Time and a Place, An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island (2016), with articles by a dozen scholars. As for PEI’s geology, check out John Calder, Island at the Centre of the World.
This study is one of the first in the field of historical geography to be published in Canada. Written after exhaustive research, it uses a particular approach to the study of historical agricultural geography which concentrates on the use of basic distributional evidence for the description and interpretation of the changing character of any region through any period of time. By the analysis of over 1200 maps, some of which form part of the text of the book, Professor Clark studies agriculture as the dominant economic activity of Prince Edward Island and traces with remarkable clarity through the changing patterns…
After living in Europe for nearly 10 years, I’ve spent more time in planes, trains, and cars than I could ever count. I was able to travel more in that time than I ever dreamed possible, making trips ranging from Gibraltar to Romania to the Isle of Skye. Most of my time was spent all around Ireland where I took tour groups around to help them get beyond Blarney and experience the real Ireland.
We all know Prince Edward Island from the Anne of Green Gables series, but nothing has made me want to step on the shores more than Liz Johnson’s contemporary romance, The Red Door Inn. When Marie flees a troubled past, she lands in PEI and finds herself helping renovate a historic bed and breakfast. Set right on the water, this story enchants the heart and scratches the travel itch in equal parts. With crackling romantic tension, sweeping views, and brisk sea air, this book has everything you need to drift away for a little vacation right from your couch.
Marie Carrington is running from a host of bad memories. Broke and desperate, she's hoping to find safety and sanctuary on Prince Edward Island, where she reluctantly agrees to help decorate a renovated bed-and-breakfast before it opens for prime tourist season.
Seth Sloane didn't move three thousand miles to work on his uncle's B&B so he could babysit a woman with a taste for expensive antiques and a bewildering habit of jumping every time he brushes past her. He came to help restore the old Victorian--and to forget about the fiancee who broke his heart. The only thing Marie and…
This marks the second time Jesse Francis and I have collaborated to explore an aspect of Prince Edward Island history. Our first book—Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island (2013)—won three prizes. We hope this new work, which presents aspects of the history of the Mi’kmaq along with those of French, Acadian, and British colonists, will be welcomed. We think it important to bring together—rather than separate—the many strands of our shared past.
More than 115 PEI women served as nurses in the First World War, and this book provides rich details about their individual and collective experiences. The author carried out meticulous research to gather the nurses’ stories from a wide range of sources and she writes about that service with admiration. Helping to convey the nurses’ varied experiences are a large number of photos and several maps which locate the overseas hospitals and other facilities where they served. Despite all they accomplished, the PEI nurses—like nurses from other parts of North America—were largely greeted by a “great silence” when they returned from overseas. Those Splendid Girls makes an important contribution to the history of women and nursing during the First World War.
Over 115 women from Prince Edward Island women served as nurses in the First World War. They were fullblooded, complex women living in a tumultuous time in our history, doing their duty on distant battlefields. Their courage, and the courage of all Canadian nurses, is saluted in a powerful new book about wartime nursing called Those Splendid Girls. It features many wartime nursing photos from private albums, a 35-page biography section, an index, and bibliography.
I was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. French is my first language, but I learned to master English in my teens. My mother taught me to read early and I became a bookworm in primary school. I began writing personal stories at ten and decided to study literature in the hope of perfecting my craft. Unfortunately, so many of the program’s books felt dull and irrelevant to me. But once in a while, an inspiring work of universal quality would come up, and I began building my collection. The books I recommend here are dear to my heart and motivated me to keep reading and writing.
I was raised Protestant in Québec, a province with a post-Catholic culture. There were few novels I could relate to growing up there. I was in my early teens when my sister-in-law lent me Emily of New Moon from her personal collection. Possibly because it’s about a nascent author, but also because it describes a Presbyterian lifestyle that felt familiar to us both. Emily Starr is a passionate girl who’s sent to live with her aunts and cousin on a farm on Prince Edward Island following her father’s death. Writing to her father “On the Road to Heaven,” she offers hilarious criticism of her culture’s religious legalism and takes her first steps as a poetess. Considered Montgomery’s most autobiographical work, it is a story full of laughter, excitement, and beauty.
Following her father's death, the newly orphaned Emily Starr is quickly uprooted and sent to live with her aunts and cousins on Prince Edward Island. After an initial culture shock, Emily reevaluates the situation and attempts to make the most of her new surroundings.
When Emily Starr's father dies from tuberculosis, she moves to New Moon Farm to stay with relatives. It's a jarring change of pace and scenery that pits Emily against her strict aunt Elizabeth and new classmates. Despite the circumstance, she forges friendships with local children: Teddy Kent, Ilse Burnley and Perry Miller. They each have distinct…
Steiner captures the same romanticism of place that author Lucy Maud Montgomery did in her beloved novels set in Prince Edward Island. Although this is a bittersweet story inspired by Montgomery’s life, the beauty of the island shines through.
The narrative weaves in and out through significant moments of Montgomery’s life, building toward the heartbreaking climax. For a long time, I wasn’t sure if this story ruined my romantic illusions of the author who created my favorite heroine, Emily Byrd Starr, but I realized life isn’t perfect. It’s up to us to create beauty and meaning from the moments life gives us.
A stunning and unexpected portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery, creator of one of literature's most prized heroines, whose personal demons were at odds with her most enduring legacy-the irrepressible Anne of Green Gables.
"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you." -L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1908
As a young woman, Maud had dreams bigger than the whole of Prince Edward Island. Her exuberant spirit had always drawn frowns from her grandmother and their neighbors, but she knew she was meant to create, to capture and share the…
I have no French or Acadian ancestors—as far as I know—yet the majority of my 21 books (history and fiction) explore different aspects of French colonial or Acadian history. Childhood visits to historic sites like the Port-Royal Habitation, Grand-Pré, Louisbourg and Fort Anne must have planted the seeds for the historian and writer I would become. Then again, working for years as an historian at the Fortress of Louisbourg definitely helped. France made me a chevalier of its Ordre des Palmes académiques for my body of work.
As the title proclaims, this is a book about one particular Acadian Deportation, that from Prince Edward Island. It occurred three years after the first wave in 1755, and it had France not the Anglo-American colonies as the destination. It was largest of all the different forcible Acadian removals, and nearly half of those sent to France perished due to shipboard illnesses and shipwrecks. Lockerby undertook meticulous research and summarizes it in this book. Before this publication came out—and there is a French-language version as well—this chapter in the saga of the Acadian people had been little and poorly understood. The headquarters for this mass deportation was the Canadian national historic site of Skmaqn—Port-la-Joye—Fort Amherst, which happens to be the focus of my next book, Ancient Land, New Land.
When the fortress of Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758, the Acadians of Prince Edward Island (then known as Île Saint-Jean) were doomed to a horrible fate—deportation from their homes to an unknown land thousands of kilometres away. Shipwrecks and disease took a terrible toll during the voyage to France, and hundreds of the approximately three thousand deportees lost their lives.
Earle Lockerby's meticulously researched account sheds new light on this tragic event, from its implementation to the experiences of the Acadians who eluded British troops and escaped to the mainland, to the deportees' arrival in Europe. Featuring excerpts…
This marks the second time Jesse Francis and I have collaborated to explore an aspect of Prince Edward Island history. Our first book—Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island (2013)—won three prizes. We hope this new work, which presents aspects of the history of the Mi’kmaq along with those of French, Acadian, and British colonists, will be welcomed. We think it important to bring together—rather than separate—the many strands of our shared past.
If all you know about Prince Edward Island is that it’s a pretty tourist destination, you will be surprised by this book. The author tells the story of PEI in the 20th century with great flair. Along the way, readers learn about the people, events, and influential forces that shaped Island life over that era. We find out not just about seed potatoes, fox farming, ferry boats, and fixed links, but also about the troubles brought by economic depression, outmigration, and regional disparity. Two world wars also figure into the story. In a nutshell, If You're Stronghearted describes both changes and continuity within the distinctive Canadian province. The book features a wonderful selection of images.
When I was a teen, I had zero aspirations to become a writer. I didn’t discover my passion for writing until I was thirty! But once I started writing, it was these books and the way they made me feel that I drew on. I wanted strong heroines that I wanted to be—and be friends with. I wanted a slow burn, skin-tingling romance with a lot of push and pull. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. To go on a quest. To feel victorious. And it is my hope that I can give my readers all the feels these books gave me.
The best kind of books are books that are your friends, aren’t they? As a reader, I usually feel connected to characters and don’t think much about authors (and I feel this is how it should be. I think once they leave an author’s hands, books belong to the reader!) but in this case, I also feel like Lucy Maude and I are kindred spirits. We both had two imaginary friends growing up, after all. That’s enough to make us BFF’s, right? 😉 Anyway, I have visited with all my Anne book friends many times, but the one I always come back to is Anne of the Island. This is probably because I love a slow-burn romance, and this is the book where Anne and Gilbert finally get together. After three books of will-they-won’t-they banter the payoff is totally worth it! (And on a side note, would this book…
In the third installment of the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne enrolls in college and must face new challenges inside and outside the classroom. The young student attempts to balance a vibrant social life with an intense course load that will push her to her limits.
Anne has left the comforts of Green Gables to embark on her college career. While attending Redmond College in Nova Scotia, she meets a new friend, Philippa Gordon and a potential beau, Roy Gardner. As her social circle grows, Anne maintains her connection with childhood cohort, Gilbert Blythe. When his undeniable affection becomes…
I have no French or Acadian ancestors—as far as I know—yet the majority of my 21 books (history and fiction) explore different aspects of French colonial or Acadian history. Childhood visits to historic sites like the Port-Royal Habitation, Grand-Pré, Louisbourg and Fort Anne must have planted the seeds for the historian and writer I would become. Then again, working for years as an historian at the Fortress of Louisbourg definitely helped. France made me a chevalier of its Ordre des Palmes académiques for my body of work.
This book offers a personalized, non-academic look at what it means for one Acadian to be part of the collective Acadian community. The author traces his family history all the way back to the time of the Acadian Expulsion and beyond. That ancestor was Joseph LeBlanc (Tyler's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather). With descendants scattered across modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the LeBlancs provide a window into the diverse fates that awaited the Acadians when they were expelled from their Acadian homeland. Some escaped the deportation; others were deported and later returned to the region, but not to same areas as those had been taken over by new settlers. In sum, the book is biographical approach to the history of the Expulsion.
Winner, 2021 Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction, 2021 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical WritingShortlisted, 2021 Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the 2021 Margaret and John Savage Award for Best First Book (Non-fiction)A Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionOn Canada's History Bestseller ListGrowing up on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Tyler LeBlanc wasn't fully aware of his family's Acadian roots -- until a chance encounter with an Acadian historian prompted him to delve into his family history. LeBlanc's discovery that he could trace his family all the way to the time of the Acadian Expulsion…
I’m a romance writer who moved around often as a child. Whenever I started a new school, I’d bring a book with me. Even now, I always run errands with a print book and my Kindle as I’m a writer, wife, and mother of four. Two of my children have medical conditions, and I’ve spent time in various doctor and hospital waiting rooms. I’ve taken books into MRI booths where I’d read while my daughter underwent an MRI. I gravitate toward emotional romances that keep me entertained while possessing a thread of humor or something unique about them so I can lose myself in their world anytime, anywhere.
If you are a kindred spirit, you know immediately why I’m recommending this book! I first picked this book up without knowing anything about it when I was a teenager. I immediately fell in love with Anne, Gilbert, Marilla, Matthew, and everyone in Avonlea. I can read this book anywhere and at any time.
Anne Shirley is an orphan who winds up at Green Gables and is given a trial basis to prove to Marilla Cuthbert why she should keep Anne, who is not a boy. Imaginative, romantic, and funny, this book (and its sequels) kept me laughing and crying, sometimes at the same time. Most of all, it reminds me that every morning is the start of a new day with no mistakes in it.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
