Alice Ackerman — Yvonne Harris

This sweeping saga is set in the 1860s when Canada was emerging as a nation, during the Cariboo gold rush and against the backdrop the U.S. Civil War. Alice, a strong-minded woman, witnesses the injustices that surround her but is powerless to change them. In this sequel to Redemption, Alice Ackerman has built a business serving the gold miners of the Cariboo. She is horrified by the treatment of the Tsilhqotin and other Indigenous Peoples in the British Colony, which culminates in the wrongful execution of the Tsilhqotin chiefs after a mismanaged trial. She eventually travels to the Deep South in search of David, her missing Civil War soldier, and comes face to face with the horrors of the Jim Crow era in the U.S. She pushes up against the racism of hard-nosed Southerners as she tries in vain to help a young black mother find her five-week-old daughter, who “The Massa” had sold for $500 right before Emancipation.