This is our introduction to the turn-of-the-millennium world of this novel: patriarchal capitalism devouring hypersexualized women, a boy who doesn’t want to be with Sami but wants to keep her entwined in his life forever, and Sami observing all this as she uses the first of many kinds of gloss, glitter, paint with which she and her best friend Lucy adorn themselves.
Beyond the Brightening Sea by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole begins in 1649 with the beheading of King Charles I. In far-off Avalon, New Found Land, fleeing Royalists work to establish a fishing colony, led by a Governor still loyal to the Crown.
How to Wrestle a Kraken begins with Tiny Wilde, a 12-year-old giant who has still not hit his growth spurt yet, sneaking out at night to fly his dragon, Basil. Not an easy thing to do with a giant, fire-breathing, mythical creature.
The book is told from the point of view of Janis, who operates a successful cake baking business out of her home. At first glance, she is living a life of domestic bliss.
Our main character Frida moves back to her hometown in Lakeland, British Columbia upon selling her debt-ridden but popular Toronto restaurant.
Told in a dual timeline, the novel is both contemporary and harkens back to events that took place in 1932.
Barwin’s latest novel follows a stand-up comic who has become Death, tasked with escorting the souls of the departed to the afterlife. He is also a husband to Betty and father to Grigory. The balancing act between the job and family, between life and death, provides the dramatic torque of the novel.
At first glance, such a label is similarly not inaccurate. Riverwork follows Lucy Snow, a woman in her 60s who follows in the physical and intellectual footsteps of her aunt Emily, who had lived in Paris and attended the Sorbonne to complete her Master’s but ended up dropping out.
What struck me at the end of reading the collection of short stories that every single one was true.
Sue Slade‘s review: Dory the Doodle, Backpacking in Newfoundland is a delightful adventure storybook for children. Written by Mark Hiscock and Kelly Traverse, and illustrated by Corey Majeau, it explores some of the key features found in travel books: the geography, culture, and history of the area. Dory, a cute adventurous dog, takes children on …
My review copy of The Great Lunenburglary arrived with a handwritten note from the author, “Please enjoy this silly book.” Clearly, author Bryn Pottie has no literary illusions. In fact, on a recent podcast he describes his target reader for his debut novel as anyone who’s “read less than a handful of books since high …
Jami Gant is in her late 20s; she has a degree in early childhood education, teaches yoga, and designs athletic wear. In the past few months, she has lost her fiancé, her yoga studio, and her apartment, thanks to her now former fiancé, all because: “some girl who looked better in yoga pants—pants I designed and sewed, by the way—walked in.”
Astrid, Aghast is the sixth book by Ottawa-area writer Ian Roy, his third collection of short stories. It’s a substantial volume containing thirty stories, a beautiful edition from Gaspereau Press, made to feel all the more substantial by the Zephyr Antique Laid stock it is printed on. The book is given a classic feel, which …
In Billie Builds a RoboCorn, the debut picture book from Toronto filmmaker José Lourenço, Billie and her father must move when her father gets a new job, and Billie must go to a new school, which is “very unfair.” Not to be kept down, the “relentlessly resourceful” Billie has a plan: she will build her …
The title of Jaclyn Desforges’s new book of short fiction, Weird Babies, is absolutely appropriate. These stories are about childhood and motherhood, and they are strange. Strange and delightful, that is: the characters and their experiences are situated to one side of what we might consider normal, ranging from speculative fiction to something close to …
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