Synopsis The Holding is the story of two women, Alyson Thomson and Margaret MacBayne, who leave all that is familiar to live a life of their own making in a rugged clearing in the Madawaska hills of eastern Ontario. Margaret MacBayne arrives from Pittenweem, Scotland, with her brothers in 1859. A hundred and thirty years later, Alyson escapes from the city to the abandoned MacBayne farmstead with her lover, Walker Freeman, a self-absorbed, reclusive ceramist. Both women leave the ghosts of their pasts behind, and in the isolation of the forest, find a controlled and satisfying existence, cultivating their gardens, making a place for themselves in the shadow of ambitious, constrained men.

Told in alternating chapters, Margaret’s harrowing tale of life alone in the Bush interweaves with Alyson’s in mysterious, disturbing ways. When Alyson becomes pregnant, tensions in her relationship with Walker seep to the surface, threatening the careful shape of her days. The death of her infant daughter while she struggles alone during an ice storm unhinges Alyson altogether. For weeks she wanders in the woods, unable to forgive what is past, unable to find a bearing that will lead her forward. One day, deep in the forest at the far boundary of their land, she stumbles on the collapsed remains of a pioneer cabin, all but hidden in the underbrush. Concealed between the logs, she finds an old cookery book and scribbled on its last pages, a story that comes to parallel Alyson’s own. The narrative moves with heightening tension between past and present, illuminating the lives of two women who occupy the same place, more than a century apart.

The Holding is an intimate journey of discovery into the things we keep most guarded, whose truths often lie in unexpected places. Taut, psychologically complex, richly told in language steeped in exotic vocabulary from the natural world, The Holding speaks straight to the heart of what matters most.