Finding Flora

by Elinor Florence · 2025

In 1905, Scottish immigrant Flora Craigie leaps from a moving train to flee an abusive husband, seizing a legal loophole that lets her claim a homestead on the untamed Alberta prairie. Alone but determined, she discovers her nearest neighbors are also women—a Welsh widow with three children, two American chicken‑raisers, and a Métis horse trainer—each battling the harsh land and a community skeptical of female farmers. As they forge fragile bonds, a hostile government threatens to expropriate their plots, prompting the women to "fire the heather"—to rise up and defend their new lives. Meanwhile, Flora’s ruthless husband stalks the horizon, and a corrupt land agent eyes the fertile ground along the burgeoning Canadian Pacific Railway. Together, these five resilient women confront danger, prejudice, and the raw beauty of the West, crafting a story of survival, sisterhood, and fierce independence.