With the exception of Claudia Dey and Logan Steiner, all of these authors are either living in the Maritimes or are from the Maritimes. The settings range from Yarmouth, Barrington Passage, and Dartmouth to Ontario, Norway, and medieval England. The topics and characters include: a clandestine affair, a family scandal, a missing man, the daughter of a serial killer, the plague, L.M. Montgomery’s marriage, and a Canada goose destined for Nova Scotia.

The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard by Ian Colford (Guernica Editions)

Although it’s been a little while since I read this, I can remember a surprising amount about it and how it made me feel; the sense of unease still with me after several months. I consider this book to be primarily a character study. Joseph Blanchard’s character is revealed to us bit by bit, becoming more and more complex. The love affair with his much younger cousin Sophie is the subject of the novel, but it’s Joseph’s perspective that we are privy to; his joy and disbelief as well as his jealousy, guilt, shame, and terror of being discovered. He is torn between painful discovery and a fantasy-like affair. But what can ever become of it? How had he let this happen? Surely, Sophie will tire of him at her young age, and move on with her music career which is just starting to take off. In a matter of months, Joseph goes from feeling a sense of “sublime well-being” to “covetous and fearful and lonely.” This book is full of dark secrets, hidden and revealed, and pulls the reader along with its mesmerizing prose.

“I confronted my self-deception, looked it squarely in the face and then strolled serenely past it.“

Thank you to Guernica Editions and Ian Colford for sending me a copy of this book!

Check out my thoughts on Colford’s A Dark House and Other Stories as well as his novel, Perfect World. I’m looking forward to the next one!

The Arrows of Mercy by Jill MacLean

When I heard this book was about an archer in medieval England, I had my doubts, but Jill MacLean’s wonderful prose and confidence in her characters won me over right away.

What I love about this book:

1.Edmund. He’s not perfect (because that would be boring), but he’s pretty darn close. Despite his mean, nasty brother, his neglectful mother, three years of brutal war, and being rejected by the woman he imagined building a home with, he remains kind and gentle and does the right thing.

2. The writing in general, but more specifically the author’s dedication to getting the language right for the era in which she was writing. I was all in for the medieval terms I had never heard before but became ‘normal’ as I read through the book. Nothing felt forced or out of place. (And how I wish I had kept track of the number of times I read the word “tarse”!)

3. The complex exploration of a faith-based society and how it impacts the thoughts and behaviours of the villagers. Without that faith, you can see how things might quickly break down into chaos.

“Edmund dips his head, anger coursing through every vein. The nature of God is mercy, our Saviour incarnated His mercy and died so all would receive mercy: the words flog him and the mastiff should have ripped off both ears because the very opposite of mercy was embodied in France, week after weary week, month after month.”

4. The plague. The plague comes to town, but first it creeps ever closer so very slowly and the tension builds. Then, when it arrives, the villagers all have their own way of handling their fear of it. Reading about the plague still fascinates me.

5. The history. It’s clear that Jill MacLean has done her research and more. It’s a pleasure being immersed in fourteenth century England, while safely hanging out in the twenty-first century. At the end of the book, there’s a note from the author in which she talks about the geopolitical circumstances surrounding her novel and the characters in it.

A big thank you to my friends Sarah and Marianne who read this book before me and both recommended it.

“For the first time in his life he’s sowing seed on land that is his; but more than that, he’s replacing what he destroyed in France, the crops he burned and trampled. He looks at the rivers lazy curves, edged by rushes and willows. Any peace to be found, all the peace the world offers, is here in this valley.”

Jill MacLean is the author of several other books, including books for young readers.

Unconventional Daughters by Bruce W. Bishop

More historical fiction, but this time in a century I’m more familiar with – the twentieth. Three sisters, adopted in Sweden and brought to Nova Scotia with their new parents. They’re living in a time of big changes–WWI, the spanish flu, votes for women, the Halifax Explosion, etc.–and get swept up on their own paths. One sister lives in Boston and moves back with her daughter after the death of her husband, bringing her secrets with her. The other two sisters live in Sweden for many years before coming home again with their own secrets.

I really enjoyed all the historical details about the town the sisters live in – because it’s where I grew up I can picture it all well. There are even interesting facts mentioned about things like flouride being added to toothpaste and the use of olive oil on sunburnt skin.

There are a lot of things going on in the novel: the lying pretentious sister, the unstable sister, the lesbian sister, the daughter/niece caught between them all, and even the long-lost brother’s story that eventually just fades away. Bishop has a straight-forward way of telling a story that relies on facts and plot that is great for historical fiction and family saga fans. He also includes letters, newspaper articles, and journal entries as alternate ways of telling his story.

The one thing about this story that I thought was a stretch turned out to be the thing the author had read about and wanted to explore in his book. (So what do I know?) What a weird, creepy mess it made.

Bruce Bishop has written two other books and I’m looking forward to reading them!

The Gift Child by Elaine McCluskey (Goose Lane Editions)

Harriet Swim, an ex-photojournalist, is working on her memoir when her cousin Graham goes missing and she decides to check things out herself.

There are so many things Elaine McCluskey does well and setting is one of them. In this novel, McCluskey takes us from Dartmouth to Barrington Passage and Shag Harbour; a delight for this reader.

It was foggy. That I know. And when the fog rolls in, the kind of fog that dampens your hair and reduces your world to square metres, some feel beaten. Others feel free. Free from the need to paint the shed. Free to not appear preternaturally happy. Free to trudge through the half-light the way they want to, knowing we are all one unnumbered heartbeat away from the end. Fog puts things in perspective–the inevitable, the Instagram illusions–and sometimes, fog lets evil creep in like a plague.

When you go to a new place, any new place, it takes time to get your bearings–to figure out what makes people happy, what makes them scared. Down here, it is the ocean, the constant that runs through villages and graveyards. Vacillating between benevolence and rage. The ocean is what feeds families; it is what breaks mothers’ hearts. You can pretend that it does not matter so much–you can pretend that it is not bad luck to be followed by a shark, that dope and booze do not give you courage, but they do.

McCluskey has introduced us to some interesting characters in this book: Stan Swim, Harriet’s narcissistic but beloved TV broadcaster father; her cousin Graham Swim who was last seen on his bike at a wharf in Pollock Passage with a tuna fish in his basket; petty criminal Korey St. Clair Scudder; Harriet’s ex Jack who ran and ran and ran; Margaret who was walking around with a truck driver’s heart; and Harriet’s middle-aged love interest Vincent who is posing as a researcher in the Pollock Passage/Shag Harbour area. What is Vincent really up to down there? And what is Harriet really looking for?

“Most of this book I wrote from memory. Aided by notes and observations. I wrote as truthfully as I could, knowing that my memory is as imperfect as I am, a mess of bad clothes and bad decisions and men I should never have trusted. Other parts wrote themselves, and they may be true. They may be life correcting itself. You can decide. Lying runs in my family, and I try not to lie. But truth is complicated. Your truth. My truth. the best truth.“

There are some wonderfully absurd scenes and characters in this book, as well as some great lines.

“MacKenzie was thick-waisted with the unnatural hairline of a Lego mini-figurine.“

“Lobster season was over, and in the air, you could smell relief.”

“There is who you are and who you pretend to be to your family, and that is necessary for your survival and for the survival of the entire human race.“

“Sometimes in life you know what is going on, but you pretend you do not because it is easier that way, easier on everyone.”

*Note: All quotations were taken from an uncorrected proof. Thank you to Goose Lane for sending me a copy of this book!

Daughter by Claudia Dey

Daughter was shortlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.

Mona’s father, Paul, holds power over all the women in his life: his ex-wife (Mona’s mother), his current wife, his mistress, and his three daughters. They are all victims of his immaturity and narcissism, yet it causes ill feelings between many of them as they vie for his attention anyway.

All her life, Mona has been desperate for the love and attention of her father, but another tragedy in her life causes her to reconsider what love really looks like and where she might find it.

At times I grew impatient with some of the characters in Daughter – as readers, things are more obvious to us than they are to them – and yet the prose pulled me along and I couldn’t stop reading.

“I would tell Paul things I could not tell Wes because I was already such a burden to Wes, I was already so disfigured and ugly with need. You should leave me, I would beg Wes. I told Paul that grief was immovable and it had no dimension, it was just there, and it lived in my throat and in my chest and in my organs. I would talk in an almost whisper to Paul… And then I would peel back the covers to try to get my breath, and I would look around our bedroom, and think, Paul has never been to our apartment, does he even know where I live.”

Daughter by Kate McLaughlin (Wednesday Books)

Coincidentally, I read two Daughters in a row. Two very different Daughters. This one was not shortlisted for the Carol Shields Prize, but the author has won the Forest of Reading White Pine Award (for grades 9-12) three years in a row. In addition to that, the author of Daughter (and many other books) is from rural Nova Scotia. It was time I read one of her books.

Aimed at a teenage audience, I was nonetheless caught up in this fast-paced story. I appreciated the focus on character as well as the strange reality the main character finds herself in. She goes from being a (mostly) typical teen to the daughter of a notorious serial killer whose victims were not much older than she is now. He is dying and wants to see his daughter. The only reason the FBI even considers his request is because they believe there are many other victims out there and is hoping Scarlett will be able to get their names out of him before he dies. I can see why this is such a fascinating premise for teens; it’s horrifying to imagine being a serial killer’s daughter. Not to mention the secrets her mother must have been keeping all these years.

Follow the Goose Butt to Nova Scotia by Odette Barr, Colleen Landry, and Beth Weatherbee (Chocolate River Publishing)

This book is adorable. I picked it up at a book fair because I couldn’t resist it. Follow the Goose Butt to Nova Scotia is part of the Camelia Airheart series in which Camelia visits each Canadian province and territory. Coming this spring is Follow the Goose Butt to Prince Edward Island.

Camelia is traveling with her Aunt Tillie, but because of a faulty Goose Positioning System (GPS), she looses her way easily and often and must count on the help of folks she meets along the way to help her get back on track. Some of her adventures include: saving Shelldon, the “dashing blue-eyed bivalve” from a hovering gull; almost running into Spike the porcupine who then repairs Aunt Tillie’s handbag with one of his quills; following Piper Peeper to the petroglyphs in Kejimkujik National Park; helping to save one of the Sable Island horses from the quicksand; hitching a ride back to Nova Scotia with Larry the leatherback who has 8211 grand-turtles; attending her first ceilidh with the Fiddler Crabs in Cheticamp, Cape Breton; and, after getting lost in the fog, finding herself with Willow the donkey from Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe and Dreamery where Willow soothes her with a story.

I love the illustrations and clever puns.

After Anne by Logan Steiner

Again, I have Sarah Emsley to thank for assuring me this book was worth a read. (And that, being about L.M. Montgomery, I wasn’t going to be disappointed.) I ended up loving it and hoping for certain aspects of it to be true – it feels gentler and kinder than the reality I have imagined for LMM for many years now.

That’s not to say Steiner’s book has made LMM’s life out to be sunshine and roses – far from it. But the bitter, lonely, and depressing marriage I worry was her reality has been presented to me as a little less bleak, for which I am grateful. It even presents many moments of happiness and joy for Maud over the years.

The book goes back and forth between the time leading up to her marriage to Ewan when they are still living in PEI and hopeful about the future, and the time after her marriage and their move to Ontario and the birth of their children. The former storyline giving some relief from the latter.

“What would it mean to come out and say just what she thought to everyone in her life? To tell the truth to poor Ewan, and to file for divorce? To tell Chester no, and to mean it? To write precisely what she wanted to write and nothing else for the rest of her days?”

Indeed, I have often wondered what the above would have meant for her: the life she missed out on, the books she didn’t get to write (and we don’t get to read).

But, “to be alive in an interesting world, and to tell about it. That was something.”

“You know, these people who come to visit, it’s because you’ve touched something inside them. More than that, you’ve gotten at the heart of this old Island. You made something permanent out of a place and time that otherwise would have been forgotten as soon as an old rag. How many other authors can say that?”

Do any of these tempt you?