When plain, outspoken Yorkshire schoolgirl Marjory Thompson immigrates with her rambunctious family to Canada in 1904, her parents are convinced that fortune awaits in the flat farmland of Manitoba. Before long, the impatient Marjory realizes her parents have got it all wrong: nothing but hard work, loneliness, and boredom lie before them. Desperate to escape, Marjory takes one rural teaching post after another, scrimping and saving, until she can afford to attend university. After graduation, she is employed as a high school principal, a rare feat for a woman in the 1930s. What comes next, at the dawn of the feminist age, is not deserved success but a single act of terrible judgment that will haunt Marjory the rest of her life. With insight and imagination, Amy Boyes brings her great-grandmother’s past alive in this tale of immigration, struggle, and the long reach of history.
Amy Boyes is a writer and music teacher in Warman, Saskatchewan, and her first book, Micro Miracle, was published by Signature Editions in 2019. Exploring family, parenting and teaching, and the places they intersect, Amy’s work can be found in The Globe and Mail, In Parentheses, The Humber Literary Review and various other literary and music magazines.
Yes, Miss Thompson is now available in bookstores and online.
