Fate and Angus McGrath: -: - - Tapa blanda

Set in the Toronto area, this is the story of a woman whose life, together with the lives of her three children, becomes closely tied to the fortunes of a medical devices manufacturing company, McGrath-LaPlante, which is fifty per cent owned by the family of her late husband. In the early 1980s, her teenage children inherit their grandmother's shares in the company and Marilyn, herself, is parachuted into a management position with a seat on the board to protect her children's interests until they fulfil the will's requirements for their education and take ownership of their shares. The resulting relationships with both McGraths and LaPlantes, the previously unexpected career opportunities and the new and expanded markets for the company's products, during the 1980s and 1990s, result in lifestyle changes to which they soon adjust. The family is continually challenged, however, by the behavioural problems of the young son of Marilyn's brother-in-law, Michael.

After a long career as an advertising copywriter, developer/designer of business communications materials and researcher/editor/ghostwriter of a number of small press non-fiction books, Jean Jardine Miller is now concentrating on writing her own novels, featuring Canadian families and the challenges they face in life. A consistently increasing audience is enjoying the first three, "Fate and Angus McGrath", "Daffodil Dancing" and The Family History" and she is currently at work on her fourth. This is, as yet untitled, and follows the lives of a young brother and sister brought to Canada from the East End of London as child immigrants in nineteenth century. Jean lives in Shelburne, a small Ontario town, where she runs the SPCA thrift store, is active in community theatre and hikes regularly on the nearby Niagara Escarpment.