It is 1850 in St. Louis and Abriel Catton receives the last will and testament of his father. He must reassemble his brothers and sisters to find the legacy his father left.

A Quaker’s faith is tested during the War of 1812 in this “stunning work of historical fiction” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Mark Greenhow, a naive and peaceful Quaker, lands on the shores of North America on the eve of the War of 1812, thinking only of finding the missing sister, a missionary whose adventurous spirit he has always admired. His pursuit begins by hitching a ride with the voyageurs who have canoed the rivers, transporting the tons of furs that feed the trade that has made the region a battleground of the French and British empires. Though Mark enters this brave new world with his conscience clean and his convictions sound, his encounters with a place and people he never could have imagined test his rigid upbringing. The backwoods of Canada have certainly led his sister astray; she has been excommunicated from the Society of Friends for running off with a non-Quaker. After her child is stillborn she runs again, deep into Indian country. On this increasingly desperate search, Mark finds himself among spies and domestic warriors, displaced natives, infidels, and the pious each engaged in their own battles to maintain their particular way of life. With Elphinstone’s crisp and effortless prose, coupled with her riveting, organic way with description, her fully drawn characters, and the history of the region, she “brings the landscapes and peoples of 1800s Canada back to thrilling life in her pacy, colorful and intelligent epic: the finest trip along these rivers since Brian Moore’s great Black Robe” (The Independent).

Andrew Wawn draws together a wide range of source material, including novels, poems, lectures and periodicals, to give a comprehensive account of the construction and translation of the Viking age in 19th century Britain.

"A hap is a Scottish dialect word for a simple shawl or wrap. Haps have a particular association with the Shetland islands... This book explores the story of the hap through five beautifully illustrated essays and thirteen stunning patterns." -- cover, page [4]