Muckle Annie

Plucky Annie McIlvanney (called Muckle Annie for her misshapen eye) agrees to follow her hapless husband, Hector Mennock, from Scotland to the Cariboo (the name for British Columbia in 1850). Finding Hector there turns into a near impossible task but eventually she succeeds. Though Hector has become a gold digger with a taste for alcohol, capable Annie turns their lives around. But good luck doesn't last long: Indians attack and kidnap Hector; Annie loses her unborn child. Searching for Hector a second time, Annie runs a flourishing saloon and agrees to remarry. On the eve of her marriage, the marauding Indians turn up again with Hector still their prisoner, but he is killed before Annie's eyes. At long last she is free. Why Annie would search the ends of the earth not once but twice for the unfortunate Hector is certainly a mystery. Yet this novel's assemblage of cheerful, warm characters engaged in difficult Cariboo lives keep the reader turning pages. This is Webster's fourth novel. January 27