We All Will Be Received by Leslie Vryenhoek After loving Vryenhoek's first novel, I was looking forward to this one - and, once again (as I suspected), I was wholly enthralled by the lives of her characters. Disappearing would be as simple as sliding off the edge, as stretching one leg forward and following it … Continue reading Women Who Disappear: We All Will Be Received by Leslie Vryenhoek and Proof I Was Here by Becky Blake
Little Fortress by Laisha Rosnau Little Fortress is based on the true story of the Caetanis, a family of Italian nobility that came to the west coast of Canada as a result of the rise of fascism. After the death of the Duke in 1934, his wife Ofelia went into seclusion and took their daughter … Continue reading Women’s Voices in Historical Fiction: Little Fortress by Laisha Rosnau and A Roll of the Bones by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole
If you follow my blog regularly, Lauren Carter's name might sound familiar. I read and reviewed her first novel Swarm when my blog was just a baby, and more recently wrote about her poetry book, Following Sea. This Has Nothing To Do With You was just launched on the 22nd of October, and it would … Continue reading This Has Nothing To Do With You by Lauren Carter
This is a humdinger of a book. Not so much the length, rather what's found between the covers. Megan Gail Coles gives us warning before the narrative begins: "This might hurt a little. Be brave." It will storm again today as surely as the nearly forty will go out again in four days' time. The … Continue reading Giller Shortlist: Small Game Hunting At the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
“Don't let the bastards grind you down.” “When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.” "Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.” … Continue reading #MARM: Intro to The Handmaid’s Tale Read-Along – Spoiler Free!
With an interviewer at the Quill & Quire, Alix Ohlin talks about how most of her stories and writing come about organically - without a lot of outlining. However, when beginning this book she knew she wanted to write a love story between two sisters. And she knew she wanted to address “questions of identity connected … Continue reading Giller Shortlist: Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin
Literary Wives is an on-line book group that examines the meaning and role of wife in different books. Every other month, we post and discuss a book with this question in mind: What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? Don’t forget to check out the other members of … Continue reading #LiteraryWives: Happenstance by Carol Shields
Sometimes I forget that MyMum is dead. But that is probably better than remembering. Frankie's Mum has died and nobody will listen. His Dad is away for work, he doesn't want to tell his Gran (for fear he will have to stay at her house), and his teacher doesn't believe him. So he comes up … Continue reading Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock
After coming out with two remarkable novels - Heave and The Memento - Watermark is Christy Ann Conlin's first book of short stories. Watermark has already garnished a lot of praise from some well-known Atlantic Canadian authors. Lynn Coady remarks that Conlin's stories "achieve a dizzying balance of light and dark"; Lisa Moore calls the stories … Continue reading Watermark by Christy Ann Conlin
"On my first visit to Jamaica I saw a pig's severed head." And so begins our time with Kara, a second-generation Jamaican-Canadian who, unlike her Jamaican cousins, does not feel comfortable with dead animals, and whose Jamaican accent is not strong enough for her Jamaican-Canadian friends. Yet around her white classmates, Kara feels too Jamaican. … Continue reading Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
