This book is based on the letters written by a family in the early years of America's midwest. An easy read, I couldn't put it down. It has it all; love, tragedy, hope, and rebirth. I recommend it to anyone who likes to wander through a different age and learn how we got here.

If you enjoy reading about the courage, hardships, sacrifices and joys of America's imigrants, you will like this book. It is the story of an English woman, her love for her family and her love of the land in America, her adopted home. Through her letters and journal, the reader shares in her life from young womanhood into old age.

U.S. publishers should tap into this U.K. writer's compelling stories as I believe there is a huge market in America that enjoy writing similar to Barbara Erskine and Susanna Kearsley.
Ms. Wendorf's main character, Nina, finds herself at a crossroads in life. Her husband has died and her large house in the city has ceased to be of use to her. Her plan is to purchase a small cottage near her pregnant granddaughter. Her logic is quite simple, but the series of events that follow lead Nina back into her own past where as a young woman she made a mistake that changed her entire life.
The 'Toll House' of the title is the cottage that Nina eventually buys and through which she eventually discovers the truth. Within it she discovers an old book which relates a period in the history of the house during the 18th century when the house was actually a toll station for the toll road. The lives of the house's former inhabitants strangely mirror Nina's own.
The book is full of interesting characters; there are gypsies, a cult, squatters, real estate agents, village busy bodies, and of course, Nina and her family, past and present.