The tenth novel by Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba, beautifully illustrated in charcoal by Frédérique Giguère, is inspired by the author’s childhood home on the island in the St. Lawrence River where her French ancestor first set foot and dreamed of a future.
On an Île d’Orléans left without a bridge or electricity, battered by rain and wind, Abigail survives on plants, her goats’ milk, and boards pulled from drowned houses.
A few last humans are clinging on too. One might expect their fate to be bleak, and the book to be an apocalyptic tale for adults, but it is instead an ode to the light that bursts forth, and to love found again when all seemed lost.
