Promise Song

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Set in 1900, this beautiful and moving novel for young teens weaves
together two aspects of the saga of the Home children.

Two sisters from an orphanage in Manchester cross the ocean together,
only to be separated by authorities in Ontario. Rosetta, 14, finds
herself on a dirt-poor farm with a childless couple. She has been taken
on as an indentured servant, bound to stay until the age of 15 (only
young children were adopted). Rosetta and the farm wife, herself a Home
child originally from Iceland, become friends. Driven by her
determination to become a teacher and, above all, to be united with her
6-year-old sister, Rosetta survives a series of hardships, traumas, and
dangers. Her budding romance with the oldest son of kindly neighbors is
developed with delicacy. Marriage to Iain may lie in her future, but
Rosetta is a strong heroine who can look after herself.

Holeman’s prose is strong yet poetic. Well crafted and cleverly
plotted, Promise Song is a delight. Highly recommended.