Under Sealed Orders

Mystery, betrayal, and murder are key ingredients in this early 20th-century love story set in rural New Brunswick. Novelist H. A. Cody has created a cast of sympathetic characters to tell the story of a pauper auction -- an extraordinary and authentically-described local custom where local residents bid against each other to earn money by taking in poverty-stricken orphans, seniors and others. In Cody's novel, the auction has its ironic aftermath. Not only does the reader have an entertaining story to enjoy, but there is also a universal lesson to be learned. Under Sealed Orders is the latest addition to the Formac Fiction Treasures series. Under the overall editorial direction of Gwen Davies, the series now encompasses 32 novels by Canadian authors from the Maritime provinces published in the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries. All titles in the series were bestsellers in their era, and many of the authors were successful enough to make writing their fulltime profession.