Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman, Nancy Freedman

She's sixteen and suffering from pleurisy so she's sent to live with her Uncle in Canada.  Her family thinks the cold dry air there will help her lungs.  No one expected her to fall in love...

BooksGoSocial and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).  It has been published and you can buy a copy now.

This is a fictionalized true story about life in Canada in the early days.  The man she loves is a mountie, so they go where they are posted.

This is a tale of a land that hasn't been tamed yet, Indians that suffered from diseases the white man brought and the interactions of natives with the white folk.  While she couldn't speak their language, they communicated well enough.  She learned if you fed one of the children, the whole family would come for tea.  And not just for one day either.

There's a lot of loss in this story.  Children had trouble surviving, the war took some more, and you were never sure if your spouse was going to make it back to you.  Her husband had some supplies he could use to help those sick and injured but if disease came, it was never enough.  Those who came after it ran out and were not happy.  Many died.

But there are also tales of survivors.  Mike and Kathy lost their children to the disease.  But they took in two young ones whose parents had died.  And they got one more child to raise when a young Indian woman died during childbirth.  Life is hard, but you get by if you just keep on keeping on.

This is very realistic with sad and happy moments.  If you want to learn about northern Canada, this will introduce you to the weather, animals, and more.  When her children died, Kathy thought about moving back home to Boston but she found she not only loved Mike, she loved the wild country, too.  I'm glad I live in this day and age.