• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7

A historical middle-grade novel following a plucky thirteen-year-old hired girl in rural 1919 Nova Scotia, exploring grief and love, poverty and privilege, and family in all its forms, from the award-winning author of The Cammie Turple series.

Lark Harnish, plucky and chatty and full of hope, is starting a new life. It's 1919 in rural Nova Scotia and at just thirteen years old, she has to leave her mother and siblings to go work at the McMasters house. Her father has died and her family desperately needs the money.

She arrives expecting another version of her own family — bruised and saddened by the loss of a parent, but still full of love and laughter and stories. Instead she finds a family in tatters, with devastated adults raising sad and lonely children. When Lark barrels in with her big personality, she disturbs a long-held silence in the McMasters house. The well-being of Lark's family is on the line, and so are the hearts of the McMasters. Can Lark find her way in this new life, or are two families about to fall apart?

In her newest historical middle-grade novel, celebrated author Laura Best brings another delightful group of characters to her readers, along with all the complexity of families finding hope in hard times.

Laura Best has had over forty short stories published in literary magazine and anthologies. Her first young adult novel, Bitter Sweet, was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People. Her middle grade novel Flying with a Broken Wing was named one of Bank Street College of Education's Best Books of 2015, and it's follow-up, Cammie Takes Flight, was nominated for the 2018 Silver Birch Award. Her most recent middle grade book, a prequel to the Cammie series, The Family Way, will be released in Spring 2021. Her first novel for adults, Good Mother Don't, was published in 2020. She lives in East Dalhousie, Nova Scotia, with her husband, Brian. Visit laurabest.wordpress.com

Laura Best's profile page