Sandi Krawchenko Altner

Ravenscraig Sandi Krawchenko Altner

Brilliant and charismatic, Rupert Willows is among the best of liars.

Not even his wife knows his true identity. Overnight fortunes are being made in 1890s Winnipeg and Rupert wants his piece of the action. Known as the Chicago of the North for its elegant architecture, Winnipeg is also a raucous, bawdy boomtown with a taste for fast money, loose women, and dirty politics. Rupert boldly schemes his way into the ranks of the elite group of men who control the city when he buys the mansion, Ravenscraig Hall. True power and vast riches could be his, as long as his secret stays buried.

Across town, Zev Zigman mounts a desperate struggle to bring his family out of tsarist Russia to settle in the overcrowded squalor of Winnipeg's North End. His teenage niece, a plucky orphan, arrives from London and risks everything when she hides her Jewish roots to enter the world of "The English" as Maisie, the new maid at Ravenscraig.

Scandal, romance, and the Titanic tragedy will determine the fates of both families as their lives become entwined in this historical family saga.

This historical novel is based on true events and circumstances that shaped the city of Winnipeg at the turn of the twentieth century.

When the railroad came through in the 1880s, the Manitoba capital quickly became one of the fastest growing cities on the continent. A powerful group of men in the wealthy class made all of the decisions, often with little thought for the needs of the hordes of European immigrants flooding into the city. For the newcomers, the city was a place of opportunity, supporting the burning dream that hard work would lead to a solid future for the generations to follow.

As Winnipeg grew into a city of mansions, fine theatres and beautiful public buildings, for some it was also a place of desperate squalor, disease, and harrowing living conditions in the city's North End. It soon became a social powder keg waiting to blow as intolerance toward the "foreign born" escalated, pitting rich against poor, as all fought to survive and thrive.

Ravenscraig won the 2012 Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. The prize is open to all genres and is presented annually through the Arts Council of the City of Winnipeg "to the writer whose book best evokes the special character of, and contributes to the appreciation and understanding of the city of Winnipeg."