Celebrate Lit / August 29, 2026

The Reluctant Healer of Halifax

About the Book The Reluctant Healer of Halifax

Book: The Reluctant Healer of Halifax

Author: Terrie Todd

Genre: Christian Historical Fiction

Release Date: August, 2026

Her Family, Her Home, Her Future—All Levelled in One Thunderous Explosion

When life seems weighed down by challenges, there are always pillars of enduring hope and love to be discovered.

Three days ago, Pearline Campbell’s family was whole, and Oliver Hamilton still loved her. But upon returning to Halifax disfigured and shell-shocked, Oliver ended their relationship. Then came Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the Halifax harbor was levelled by a tremendous explosion. . and Pearline fears nothing will ever be whole again.

Her parents are dead, her brother is missing, and her sister refuses to speak. Pearline must fortify herself to open her home to needy orphans, including an unidentified baby.

Where can she find the strength for each new day as misery grips the city?

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My Thoughts on The Reluctant Healer of Halifax

The Reluctant Healer of Halifax is a wonderful historical fiction novel based on a true event that doesn’t get a lot of pages in the history books. I’m not Canadian, but I have always wanted to visit Nova Scotia. We don’t learn a lot about Canada in schools here in the United States. Being the person I am, though, I have read some about this event before. I’m an avid history person and often research and read up on places I’d like to visit.

Is this where I admit my start of looking into Nova Scotia was because of the Anne of Green Gables books? I’ve read the whole series numerous times. Now I’m wondering why it wasn’t mentioned in the Rilla book. I think it would have been during the same time period.

To set the stage, it’s December 1917. WWI is in full swing, and things are really starting to happen. The US is about to enter the war( happens the day after the explosion). The Titanic has already sunk.

For this disaster, we’ve got two ships. One crashes into the other. It’s a huge explosion. The largest pre atomic that we have on record, I believe. And it’s not just the people on the ships that are affected. It sends shockwaves miles away. The biggest problem is that glass is broken from it, and the broken glass causes blindness in hundreds of people, plus around 2000 died.

Our main character steps in.

Pearline is a strong character. She struggles and has her doubts, but she opens her home to the wounded. She even takes in a newborn baby. There are wounded veterans from war who were in facilities and need new places to go; there are soldiers now wounded from the explosion, but there are lots and lots of civilians as well.

Oliver comes home from war disfigured and wounded. He’s struggling with his worth. And with how others view him, I’m sure.

Both must find out who they are underneath when push comes to shove. They must dig deep and see who is hiding under their protective layers. And they must push aside their discomfort to help others.

I fully enjoyed this novel and getting to know the characters, plus reading about what might have happened during the explosion. This is a great novel, and I hope you take the time to read it.

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, which I received from Celebrate Lit. All views expressed are only my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

About the Author of The Reluctant Healer of Halifax

Terrie Todd is a Canadian author of nine historical and split-time novels and one nonfiction book. Her work has earned numerous Word Awards from The Word Guild, the 2018 Janette Oke Award from Inscribe Christian Writers Fellowship, and the 2022 Braun Book Award. She is also a Carol Award Finalist.

From 2010-2024, she wrote a weekly “Faith and Humor” column for her hometown newspaper, and since 2021, a monthly column for the Heroes, Heroines, and History blog. Terrie lives with her husband, Jon, in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, where they raised their three children. They are grandparents to five boys.

More from Terrie

It wasn’t until I was interviewing a friend for a newspaper column that the Halifax Explosion of 1917 began to interest me. My friend, Gene, had gone blind from macular degeneration, and I wanted to write a series of columns about what it was like for him to lose his sight and now live with blindness.

One of the books Gene mentioned as having inspired him was the true story of Eric Davidson.

At the time of the explosion, Eric was a toddler, playing with his toy car on a windowsill in his Halifax home. The glass exploded, permanently blinding Eric. The north end of Halifax was destroyed, and roughly two thousand residents died. Nine thousand more were wounded, including hundreds blinded or partially blinded by flying glass. The mass blinding helped birth the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). Eric’s daughter, Marilyn Davidson Elliott, wrote the book The Blind Mechanic about her father.

I found Eric’s story fascinating.

When given the opportunity to try for a spot in Barbour’s series of books about historical disasters, I decided to write one about the Halifax explosion. The more I researched, the more I wondered why we didn’t learn about this in school, and the harder it was to imagine the devastation that the city and its people survived. This was during a world war and only five years after being highly involved in the recovery of the Titanic’s victims and survivors, a disaster that helped prepare them for this one.

Story after story, many revealing the incredible determination of the stalwart people of Nova Scotia and the Bostonians who came to their aid, moved me to tears. It was difficult to choose which experiences to borrow for my characters. I was thrilled to visit Halifax in 2025, a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Naturally, the book includes some blind and partially blind characters.

I so appreciate the input from my two blind beta readers, Alexandra Banwell and Leanne Merren. One of my favorite things to do with each book I launch is to choose a charity to which I give a portion of the proceeds from my local book launch. For this book, I’ve chosen the CNIB’s Guide Dog program.

Although my book never became a part of that series, Barbour decided it would be a good fit for their “Enduring Hope” series. The rest is, literally, history. I’m thrilled to be part of this series and have enjoyed the first five immensely.

I hope you read them all!