Newfoundland songs are diverse in origin. Vast numbers of them come from the British Isles, especially from England and Ireland; many are composed in Newfoundland, usually on English or Irish models; a lesser number of American, Canadian, and French songs are current. The ballads to be found in the Child collection are probably the oldest now sung. Then there are many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century broadside ballads, particularly English, and many nineteenth-century compositions. Such are the backgrounds from which the compilers of this volume have drawn their unusually interesting and delightful collection of ballad texts and ballad music. Expeditions to the island in 1920 and 1929 furnished the tunes; and a genuine interest in folk-literature assured the care and accuracy of the work.

Katie Carey's life is disrupted by a request from her dying father, forcing her to recall the enigmatic grandfather she never knew. A skulking stranger, hints of the Irish struggles for independence and a recurring dream are preludes to accusations and murder, catapulting Katie on a quest to her Irish roots. She soon learns her traveling companion harbors disturbing hositilities. Shocking truth unravels, revealing passions fueled in hatred and rekindled in the present ongoing strife, bringing with it, repercussions landing squarely on Katie's shoulders. In her second novel, L. Jaye Hill recaptures the unique character of steel town, Shankton, Pennsylvania, first introduced in the historical novel, Steel Clouds.