Best Beloved, Are you up in your room this afternoon, I wonder, or are you sitting here beside me, looking out over the water — with your head resting on my shoulder...?

Told with original love letters, Maplecroft, the first book in the Maplecroft family saga series, tells the story of Austin and Errington who lived and loved in the once budding industrial town of Preston, Ontario, Canada. A love, troubled by long-enduring absences, mysterious illness, and an overbearing father whose portrait now hangs in the Cambridge Hall of Fame.

Over a century after their love blossoms, the discovery of the letters is made by Lauren. Suffering a recent tragedy, Lauren finds solace in the words of Austin and Errington and the old Muskoka cottage where the two stories intersect.

Transporting the reader to turn of the century Southern Ontario, this richly atmospheric historical fiction is the gateway to the heartbreakingly beautiful love letters of Austin and Errington and their deeply moving Edwardian love story. It’s about enduring love and the power to imagine when we find ourselves apart.

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Mary-Clare Terrill is an Australian-Canadian writer of historical fiction. Her debut historical romance novel, Maplecroft, is based on the true story of her great-grandparents and their lovingly preserved love letters: the first book in the Maplecroft family saga series.