Margaret's Hope
by Jewell Mitchell

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Returning home to the small seaside community of Lockeport, Nova Scotia, after several years away in teacher’s college, Margaret Conrad thought she knew what to expect. Although she is certainly no longer the shy, broken-hearted girl she’d once been, her hometown hasn’t changed in generations. Lockeport in 1907 is still as predictable as the tides. What she hadn’t counted on, though, is that her first and only love, Joseph Locke, has returned as well … and she certainly didn’t expect that he’d love her still. Unlike most of the local men—whose livelihoods were made out on the waves—Joseph didn’t come from a family of fishermen. In a way, this only added to his appeal. She’s always held a reverence for the ocean and its bounty. Yet, it’s brought her a healthy dose of fear as well. Local men are lost every season due to the mighty ocean’s fickle nature as they struggle to pull that bounty from its depths. Adrift now, Margaret is caught between the swirling eddies of life’s uncertainty and the draw of long-forgotten dreams. She must decide if she will hold fast and true to the rewarding (but solitary) course she’s so painstakingly charted for herself ... or give in to the inexorable riptide of her heart’s demands.

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Like her protagonist, author Jewell Mitchell was raised in Lockeport, Nova Scotia, and thus fashioned by the fortitude and courage of women living by the sea. An adult educator by trade, Jewell believes in the power of storytelling to make meaning of life’s experiences. Margaret’s Hope is a historical love story inspired by the courage of those daring enough to make their living out on the open ocean and the strength of those awaiting their return. A way of life Jewell and her family know all too well. Lovers of nature and the quiet life, Jewell and her husband, Tim, split their time between his home parish of Acadieville, New Brunswick and Jewell’s beloved homeland shores.

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Contributors

Author

Jewell Mitchell