Nuanced and compelling…
Set against the backdrop of a world enveloped in the chaos of depression, Derenas’s debut is a riveting, complex tale of the courage of one ordinary man. Losing his wife to childbirth is just the beginning of a series of misfortunes for Nazaire Poulin. His children are taken, and with the threat of losing his land becoming real every passing day, Nazaire has no option but to set for a horrendous journey to seek his fortune in the Yukon gold mines. Derenas skillfully blends historical plausibility with historical truth and weaves in a fiction account with the actual journey of her own ancestors from the early 1900s. Her imaginative spin on the brothers’ 4000 miles harrowing journey from eastern Canada to the Dawson Trail and the Yukon gold mines is intensely realized. The narrative remains gripping, and the realistic, utterly convincing characters immediately draw the reader into their problem, from minor to grave. Meticulously researched and brilliantly executed, this gripping tale serves as a solid history lesson on the 1900s Canada.
The Long Shot: A French Canadian Saga
(A Klondike Gold Miner’s Life Book 1)
By Joyce Derenas
Pub date March 18, 2019
ISBN 978-1090787293
Price $12.50 (USD) Paperback, $0.99 Kindle edition