The Outlander (2008)

Mary Boulton is on the run. A 19-year-old wanted for the murder of her bastard of a husband, she flees her vengeance-seeking brothers-in-law and steals away into the Canadian wilderness. Here, the privileged child of early-20th-century society meets a nomadic woodsman, with whom she has a steamy tryst before she settles into a mining town populated by a dwarf, a giant, and a reverend who builds crooked houses. Enriched by vivid language that reflects Gil Adamson's background as a poet (''The widow...felt an ants-crawl of sweat down her belly''), The Outlander is a riveting tale of a woman's thirst for freedom. A-