Fireflies in Winter

The beautiful latest from British author Shearer (River Sing Me Home) follows a young woman transplanted from Jamaica to Nova Scotia in the late 18th century. Orphaned Cora grows up in Jamaica’s Maroon community of free Blacks, whose ancestors escaped from slavery and integrated with the Indigenous Taino people. When the British colonial authorities forcibly relocate the Maroons to Canada, Cora winds up there with her foster family. Resisting her family’s pressure to marry, she wanders the “glittering world” of the forest, where she meets the formerly enslaved Agnes. Also orphaned, Agnes was taught as a child how to survive in the woods by the Indigenous Mi’kmaq people. The narrative toggles between 1797, as Cora and Agnes gradually fall in love, and a murder trial that takes place the following January, the details of which are concealed for most of the novel. Shearer thoroughly grounds her story in the realistic details of a history most readers won’t be familiar with, and she conveys the joys and dangers of life in Nova Scotia, where humpback whales leap in the ocean and bear attacks can be fatal. It’s a subtle and morally complex depiction of the price of freedom. (Feb.)