Novels

Cinda Gault’s novels place women at the centre of Canadian history as individuals making decisions within the social, political, and moral realities of their time.

Set across distinct periods of Canada’s past, her work examines how women navigate constraint and possibility, how power is negotiated in everyday lives, and how personal choices reverberate within larger historical forces. These are novels shaped by research and imagination in equal measure, grounded in real places, real conditions, and the lived textures of Canadian history.

Rather than rewriting history from the margins, these stories unfold within them—where women have always lived, worked, resisted, adapted, and acted.

Set in Toronto, Everything I Hope For unfolds amid the turbulence of second-wave feminism, cultural upheaval, and new freedoms for women in Canada. At seventeen, Belinda comes of age at a moment when possibility is expanding—but certainty is not.

The novel follows Belinda as she confronts an age-old dilemma: she falls in love with someone deemed unacceptable by those around her. But this is not a Romeo and Juliet story. In a world offering women freedoms previous generations could only imagine, Belinda must choose which risks to take—and what she is willing to lose to claim her own autonomy. How can she know if the one she fights for is truly worth it? Her journey into adulthood unfolds amid a family and society consumed by their own turmoil, and the only voice she can trust is her own.

Two remarkable women start out in 1806 on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Isobel Gunn disguises herself as a man to sail from Orkney, Scotland, to Hudson Bay as an employee in the Canadian fur trade. Meanwhile, in Québec, Marie-Anne Gaboury falls madly in love with a coureur de bois and insists on accompanying him when he returns to the west. Eighteen hundred miles inland on the Canadian prairies, the "Orkney lad" delivers a baby on the hearth of a fur trade post, while the young French bride discovers why her new husband had resisted bringing her along. 

Though the first two non-Indigenous women to venture into the Canadian northwest left no record of meeting, the two have their babies within a week of each other in the same place. In this story, not only do they meet, but their journeys land them together fighting for their lives in the Canadian wilderness. 

The year is 1885, and Abigail Peacock is resisting what seems to be an inevitable future—a sensible career as a teacher and a marriage to the earnestly attentive local storeowner.

But then she buys a rifle, and everything changes.

This Godforsaken Place is the absorbing tale of one tenacious woman’s journey, set against dramatic myths of the Canadian wilderness and the American Wild West. Abigail’s adventure introduces her to some of the most infamous characters of her time—including Annie Oakley and Gabiel Dumont—and brings the high stakes of the New World into startling focus. 

Officer Taryn Boyd is determined to keep her juvenile, Craig Taylor, from sliding into deeper trouble—at any group home but Spencer House. Yet, when it’s the only bed available, she’s forced to clash with Jesse Spencer, whose philosophy on rehabilitating youth opposes everything she believes.

Despite her reservations, she can’t deny his conviction—or her unwelcome attraction. With Craig’s future at risk, Taryn must navigate the battle between her duty and feelings for a man she’s not sure she can trust.

Taken together, these novels trace a continuum of women’s lives across Canadian history. While each story stands on its own, all share a common concern: how women exercise agency within constraint, how they make meaning through action, and how history is shaped not only by events, but by the choices of those living inside them.

Cinda Gault’s fiction is informed by historical research and a deep respect for the complexity of the past. Her novels resist mythmaking and simplification, offering instead stories that are precise, humane, and attentive to the forces that inspire individual lives.

Each novel has its own page with a full description, historical context, and purchase information.

If you are interested in how these themes extend into Cinda Gault’s speaking and public work, you can also explore her talks on courage, choice, and women’s lives within history. 

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