What if the children of star-crossed lovers actually dealt with their families' troubles?

Autumn Dean unexpectedly returns home from Europe to her father's ranch in the Okanagan Valley, where she reconnects with Bruce Langdon, a stoic childhood friend grown into an accomplished rancher. Autumn and Bruce's budding romance is halted by the revival of an intergenerational grudge between their two families that is shrouded in mystery. Autumn is insistent on uncovering the root of the hostility: a forbidden romance between her mother and Bruce's father that had devastating consequences. As Bruce and Autumn circle the truth of what happened, they're both haunted by the past, and must decide if they forge ahead together or alone. Originally published in 1931, Prologue to Love is a lush portrait of early 20th century BC ranch life, and an intergenerational tale of love and loss—and hope and redemption. This new edition features an introduction by Hannah McGregor.

Martha Ostenso was born near Bergen, Norway in 1900, and died at Seattle, Washington in 1963. Ostenso's family immigrated to the midwestern US in 1902, then to Brandon, Manitoba, and later to Winnipeg, where Ostenso completed high school. Before attending University of Manitoba, she taught briefly in Hayland, Manitoba. Ostenso worked briefly as a reporter, then moved to the US in 1921. She studied with Canadian Douglas Durkin at Columbia University in New York, and did social work in Brooklyn for several years before moving with Durkin to Gull Lake, Minn, in 1931. She is the author of one book of poetry and sixteen novels, of which Wild Geese is the best known.

Martha Ostenso's profile page

Hannah McGregor is an Assistant Professor of Publishing at Simon Fraser University, a feminist podcaster, and a CanLit killjoy. She co-hosts the popular Harry Potter podcast Witch, Please, and hosts the slightly-less-popular podcast Secret Feminist Agenda, a weekly discussion of the insidious, nefarious, insurgent, and mundane ways we enact our feminism in our daily lives. When she isn't podcasting, Hannah writes about Canadian literature and publishing for mostly academic venues, including the edited collections Editing as Cultural Practice in Canada (Wilfrid Laurier University Press 2016) and Reading Modernism With Machines (Palgrave Macmillan 2016). She lives in Vancouver on the territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and has two cats; one is named after a poet, and the other is named after a breakfast.

Hannah McGregor's profile page

"Ostenso has written a beautiful novel that expertly depicts the choice between love and family, and while you may read Prologue to Love for the mystery and budding romance, you will stay for the grandeur of British Columbia."—Miranda Marini, The Ormsby Review

The Ormsby Review