A heartland novel set in post-war rural Alberta, The Prisoner of Cage Farm evokes Canadian prairie classics like Martha Ostensos Wild Geese and F. P. Groves Settlers of the Marsh. The McFaddens are a well-to-do country family who occupy Thorncliffe Heights in rural Alberta. Across the road, the Cage Farm can barely keep its household together. Still, Lewis McFadden, war veteran and incurable romantic, is hopelessly infatuated with the beautiful and mysterious Isabel Cage. Enter Emiline Thomas who answers a newspaper ad to be Isabels tutor at the Cage Farm. Coming from big-city Toronto, Emiline is soon exposed to the harsh and uncompromising effect of the prairie landscape on her ability to survive an isolating and lonely experience. In a time before electricity, paved roads, and reliable vehicles, the clash between Emilines urban upbringing and the Cages monotonous prairie existence is inevitable. In this vast expanse of loneliness, a secret within Emiline unleashes a tragic chain of events that begs the question: who exactly is the prisoner of Cage Farm? Freys novel disrupts the legacy of stereotypical notions of prairie life while building on gothic genres of great writers of the past like the Brontë sisters.
