Promise Song (NY City Library's 1998 Books for the Age of Ten Se)

The year is 1900 and orphaned 14-year-old Rosetta and her beloved younger sister Flora sail from England as “home girls.” They are sent to Canada so that they can have a chance at family life. Their dreams are shattered when Flora is adopted, but Rosetta is deemed to be too old. She is to become a farm worker, far from Flora’s new home.

Rosetta’s only dream is to find her sister. But slowly and against her will, she is drawn into the lives of the strange couple with whom she has been placed. It is soon clear to her that their home is full of fear and sorrow.

As her relationship develops with the farmer’s wife, Rosetta learns that true sisterhood can take many forms. The support the two young women offer one another makes each one stronger until they find a way to follow their dreams.

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Linda Holeman had always dreamed of becoming an author. Her first writing success came when she was in grade 5. A story she had written was aired on the CBC radio program “Story Broadcast Journal” and she still has a copy of the booklet it was published in.

Her career has included stints as a classroom and resource teacher and an adult workshop instructor. Her first published work as an adult was a collection of short stories called Saying Good-bye in 1995. She is the author of Frankie on the Run, a picture book and Flying to Yellow and The Devil’s Darning Needle, two collections of short stories for adults. Her fiction and non-fiction pieces have appeared in numerous anthologies.

Both Promise Song, her first young adult novel and Mercy’s Birds, her second, were selected for Books for the Teen Age lists by The New York Public Library. Her third YA novel, Raspberry House Blues, was published in Fall 2000 to excellent reviews. All three novels feature strong female teen protagonists and have been praised for the true representation of character, and especially, dialogue. Search of the Moon King’s Daughter is a new work of historical fiction, already being well received. Linda Holeman lives in Winnipeg.