Amelia: an 18th century Englishwoman in the wilderness of New Brunswick.

By Diane Scott Lewis

 

 

In writing my Canadian-based novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, with the wonderful research assistance of Nancy Bell, I wanted not only a strong heroine, but not the usual ‘beautiful’ woman who strikes every man to his core with her ravishing looks. I wanted a woman not considered attractive by traditional standards, but one who must struggle and fight her way to be taken seriously, and forge her own happiness.

Amelia Latimer arrives in New Brunswick in 1784, just as this western portion of the colony is breaking away from Nova Scotia. Her father is a captain in the British army stationed at Fort Howe. He’s requested her long journey from Plymouth, England, to betroth her to one of his officers, Lt. Harris.

Because she isn’t beautiful, Amelia at four and twenty years has had few marriage prospects in England; but she still hated to leave her mother who is ill with consumption. Amelia is intelligent, spirited, and determined to find happiness and a purpose.
Her first meeting with Harris doesn’t go well and deeply insulted, she plans to return to England to care for her mother.

But soon New Brunswick, with its startling beauty, rugged shoreline and pastoral interior, charms her.

 

Captain Latimer wants her to return home on the next ship since she’s refused his choice of a husband, but after hearing of her mother’s death, Amelia has ideas of her own.

The remote colony is a mixture of many cultures. The aboriginals, mainly the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes, who settled the land first. The French Acadians, in what was once New France, who were expelled—even slaughtered—when the English took over, then slowly allowed to return. And the Loyalists who fled north in '83 after the American Revolution, and now flood the country in need of land, food and occupation.

Amelia wants to cultivate herbs for medicinal purposes, but can she survive the harsh Canadian winter, and will a most unsuitable man steal her heart?

 Amelia Latimer is a fictional character whom I’ve entwined into the budding and fascinating history of New Brunswick.

Coming in January 2018

 

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