The Wind Seller

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Rachael Preston’s second novel offers mystery, romance, and high
drama. It is a compelling story of 20th-century piracy, and of Hetty
Douglas, a professional nurse, as she struggles to find purpose in her
life and to escape from two haunting fears: an arranged marriage to
Peter, and her horrific memories of the 1917 explosion in Halifax
Harbour. Fine prose and a historian’s eye for significant details
carry readers along briskly.

Hetty’s daily walk takes her high above the harbour, which has been
familiar to her from childhood. As the novel begins, she comes upon an
unusual sight. The storm has driven the Esmeralda, a badly damaged
schooner, on shore. Gathered nearby are Noble Matheson, a familiar local
character and an aspiring writer, and a young girl who seems to be one
of the schooner’s crew. The locals suspect rum-running, with nearby
Moose Island as the perfect cover.

Excerpts from Noble’s work-in-progress appear in the book in italics,
as do excerpts from his writers’ guide, The Elinor Glyn System of
Writing. The multiple voices-within-voices are clever and amusing, but
can at times be confusing. The Wind Seller ends with wedding plans for
Peter and Hetty, and also with a court hearing. The symbol of hope and
of new life is caught in a single green spout breaking through the soil
in Hetty’s garden.

The Wind Seller explores the many mixed feelings and emotions that can
be part of doubt, love, hate, and indecision, especially in times of
weddings and storms at sea. Preston, a native of Yorkshire, England,
studied at the Emily Carr College in Vancouver, and now teaches creative
writing at Mohawk and Sheridan Colleges.