Dish by Nancy Jo Cullen
Our main character Frida moves back to her hometown in Lakeland, British Columbia upon selling her debt-ridden but popular Toronto restaurant.
Fiction
Return to Breakneck Island by Tom Ryan
Told in a dual timeline, the novel is both contemporary and harkens back to events that took place in 1932.
The Comedian’s Book of the Dead by Gary Barwin
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.
Riverwork by Lisa Robertson
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 Endures by Pauline Holdstock
What struck me at the end of reading the collection of short stories that every single one was true.
“One Book, Two Reviews:” Dory the Doodle, Backpacking in Newfoundland by Mark Hiscock and Kelly Traverse, illustrated by Corey Majeau
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 …
The Great Lunenburglary by Bryn Pottie
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 …
Big Dill: A Small Town Pickleball Romance by Cathryn Fox
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 by Ian Roy
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 …
Billie Builds a RoboCorn by José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço & James Braithwaite
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 …
Weird Babies by Jaclyn Desforges
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 …
I Wanna Fight (I Need Peace): We Inherit the Fire by Kagiso Lesego Molope
You hear it often enough: the past clings and refuses to let go. Or how it echoes into the present with the crippling fear of repetition. It’s almost like condemnation, scorn and a warning all wrapped in one. Too much reminiscing about the past leaves you blind to the present, but forgetting leaves you susceptible …
The World So Wide by Zilla Jones
Complex female characters? Check. Historical revolution? Check. Challenging themes of race and class? Check. Opera? Check! The World So Wide by Zilla Jones is a beefy read in more ways than one, spanning decades, countries, nationalities, lovers, and stages. It really has everything, but most importantly it has Felicity, the main character. Felicity Alexander, the …
Syncopation by Whitney French
Though utopian fiction is far from uniform, we might modify Tolstoy’s famous dictum about unhappy families to say that every work of post-apocalyptic speculative dystopia must be unhappy, too, in its own way, and that the relationship and power dynamics its author sees persisting in the world after collapse must be particular to their own experience, their privileges, deprivations, and insight into what is unsustainable about the now.
Seasons of the Heart: A Tapestry of Stories Woven Through Time by Lana Shupe
We wandered throughout four seasons of magical short stories, in the landscapes of both Western and Eastern Canada.
