Lynne Martin

Emily Madison, young and newly wed, leaves the pleasant, secure environment of a small west coast college town in 1923 to embark on a journey that eventually takes her around the world and that will impact her throughout her life.
From an idyllic visit to Honolulu to despair aboard ship in the mid-Pacific Ocean to a natural disaster in Japan before she even arrives in Canton, China, Emily wrestles with questions of faith, tolerance and demands of family against the backdrop of a confusing culture, international and local tensions and her own personal choices.

From warring factions fighting for control of China, through years of Japanese occupation in China, until her return to the United States aboard an evacuation ship, Emily cherishes the joy of all children and the age-old magnificence of her adopted homeland contrasted with such enigmas as the celebration of the Chinese New Year and a pilgrimage to a monastery.

With inspiration from an eighty-year-old set of family letters, the author has written a historical novel that brings to life the period after one world war and into the second. Letters from Canton is the journey of a woman for whom the reader will be a welcome and willing companion.

…without mother and five weeks with my dog. I named her Merry Chase. I wish they knew each other. She smiles at me and her eyes make me feel good, like mother did. We go everywhere together and I will never be without her. She is my golden best friend forever. My name is Becca. I am 5 years old.

Rebecca Sander is at a crossroad. Reading the missive she wrote more than sixty years ago and mesmerized by the prescience shown, she takes the sentiment to heart, closing the door on the life she’s known. After a lifetime of Golden Retrievers as companions, she follows her heart to Guisachan, their ancestral home in Scotland, traveling solo. Facing many forks in the road, she meets and joins two other travelers at unexpected junctions. How they navigate a chosen path together defines the future happiness of each. From disparate origins, three have come together, drawn by the reach of the pine forest.