In the early twentieth century, Andrew Zak proposes to Rosalia Patala in a letter. New to North America from Slovakia, Rosalia boards a train from New York to Crowsnest Pass, AB, where she marries a man she knows only through the written word. They bear and lose their first child, fear the dangers of hazardous coal mines, and raise a family of four children on their homestead.

But this story contains holes, and Monica Kidd, a journalist and great-granddaughter to Andrew and Rosalia, is compelled by them. In prose as beautiful as her poetry, Kidd describes her life-altering journey toward uncovering the mysteries of her family's past. Did Andrew and Rosalia court? Why did they each leave Slovakia? Years later, in present day Canada, Monica travels from her home in Newfoundland back to Alberta and then Slovakia, where she trails the ghost of Rosalia in search of why she, and the thousands of women like her, launched themselves into the vast unknown of becoming frontier wives.