The Measure of Katie Calloway by Serena Miller takes place shortly after the end of the Civil War. Katie flees with her brother to the north woods of Michigan to escape an abusive husband. She hires on as a cook for a lumber camp.

The book portrays the hardships and danger involved in logging operations. She also shows how hard it was for a woman on her own to make it in the post Civil War days.

With the support of the owner of the camp and the loyalty of the loggers, she learns to stand up for herself and protect her brother.

The owner, Robert Foster, is a widower who has his own scars to heal from being a surgeon in the Union Army and the death of his own wife in childbirth while he was serving in the war.

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