Downhill Chance

There is no road to Rocky Nead or The Basin, two tiny fishing hamlets hugging the isolated cuves of Newfoundland. Little outside news permeates daily existence. And only the occasional visitor turns up to keep the bloodlines clean. But remoteness is no barrier to the global reach of World War II which has its tragic impact even here. Job Gale, fisherman, hunter, and logger, enlists in the army, leaving his distraught wife and two young daughters behind for a cause neither they nor their neighbours can understand. When Job returns at last, he is broken in body and tortured with a secret shame. Job's burden cascades over the family, afflicting his spirited elder daughter. Fierce, unbending, unswerving, Clair Gale is of one family, yet joins herself to another ; of one community, yet forsakes it for another. The Osmonds and the Gales are both burdened by scars and sorrows and secrets - and only the unravelling of those secrets can bring redemption to Clair and those she loves.