The Defen
der
Araby Lockhart is a proud library supporter and voracious reader. She has happily settled into her retirement in the beautiful countryside of the Town of the Blue Mountains and now has time to read whenever and whatever she likes. Lockhart was very pleased to be asked to defend her favourite Canadian title at this year’s Georgian Bay Reads.
Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan was an easy and obvious choice for Lockhart. She expressed that it is a “cracking good story; very well written.” Barometer Rising is both a fascinating story of the Halifax Explosion in 1917 and a masterpiece of Canadian literature. Lockhart articulated that the book “blew her away” and that Hugh MacLennan is a phenomenal Canadian writer who needs to be “trumpeted more.”
The Book
Penelope Wain believes that her lover, Neil Macrae, has been killed while serving overseas under her father. That he died apparently in disgrace does not alter her love for him, even though her father is insistent on his guilt. What neither Penelope or her father knows is that Neil is not dead, but has returned to Halifax to clear his name.
Hugh MacLennan’s first novel is a compelling romance set against the horrors of wartime and the catastrophic Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917.
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