Ralph Truitt is wealthy, keeps most of his small Wisconsin town employed, but is terribly lonely and unhappy in the winter of 1908. His first wife and daughter died and his son ran away from home years ago. So he places an ad for a "reliable wife" in a paper and Catherine Land shows up in the train car he sends for her. She throws her fancy clothes out the window and steps off the train in a simple black dress. Both of their pasts are full of secrets, though Ralph shares most of his with her, she does not reciprocate, but slowly starts liking and appreciating the man. He asks her to go after his son in St. Louis that some investigators have found for him. This is where it gets all complicated.
One of the parts of the book I liked was that Catherine learned most of what she knew from libraries. She never got to attend school, but her younger sister taught her to read and she just found libraries a good, safe place to be and worked her way through many books. At one point she starts fantasizing about a garden and reads a ton of gardening and botanical books.
I don't know why it felt like the book dragged and the winter seemed endless. For all of the story to evolve it seemed like many more months would have passed, but who am I to say. It was about grief, forgiveness, family, the possibility of change, so I can't say I didn't like the book.
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