Newfoundland author Sharon Bala stated in a recent post at Atlantic Books Today: “Short stories are an endangered species. Valiant publishers still print collections. And those collections punch above their weight when it comes to awards.” [perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#2277AE” class=”” size=””]The traveller(s) in these nine stories take some emotional hits due to experiencing …
I must admit to a certain guilty pleasure that comes from reading and reviewing Young Adult (YA) novels. First of all, they are an ‘easy’ read; the stories are often straightforward, devoid of gratuitous sex, profanity and violence (in most cases) and the author’s message is clear. Secondly, it makes me see things through the eyes of …
A man, let’s call him Adam (since one of the stories in this collection is called Adam and Eve Saved from Drowning, and Eve is the name of his cousin and sometime traveling companion) is trying to escape his past: a failed marriage, children grown and out of the house, and the beautiful woman that …
Nova Scotian author Charlotte R. Mendel has written a different kind of novel with A Hero (2015, Inanna Publications). It is different in that it concerns the lives of an extended Muslim family living in an unnamed post-revolutionary Muslim country. While the family is Muslim, it could be any family living anywhere, from the inner city …
Just after finishing Let Us Be True (2015, Coteau Books), I rated it a 3 out of 5 stars at Goodreads. Then I changed my mind and gave it another star because I kept thinking about the story long after I finished it, which is a sign of a four-star book for me. I kept thinking …
Can a man have it all? The warmth of a solid family and the challenges of a fruitful career?These questions lie at the heart of Limerence, a fun novel exploring the lives of two people seeking very different ways to be men.
Quattro Books (“Home of the Novella”) has just published an endearing gem with Tomas and the Gypsy Violin. It is the story of Frank and Anna Lewitt, who adopt a seven-year-old Romani (formerly ‘Gypsy’) boy named Tomas after seeing a news report of the persecution of Roma in Eastern Europe. Told by Adam, Frank’s son from …
Back in High School English class, we had to read Margaret Laurence’s A Jest of God, which I did enjoy reading, although looking back it might have been too mature a book for teenagers to study in depth. At any rate, any book with a strong and overburdened female living back in the late 1800s/early …
Wake the Stone Man (2015, Roseway Publishing) is Nova Scotia author Carol McDougall’s latest novel and it is a very thought-provoking one. It won the 2013 Beacon Award for social justice literature, which is a prize for an unpublished novel. [perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#0073AA” class=”” size=””]I recommend Wake the Stone Man as a very …
This week I received two novels in the Formac Fiction Treasure series: Under Sealed Orders by H.A. Cody and A Changed Heart by May Agnes Fleming. Formac’s site explains the need for reprinting these all-but-forgotten classics from Canada’s past: Though little known today, from 1860 to 1940 Canadian novelists from the Maritime provinces were writing highly successful …
It has been quite some time since I have read any ‘modern’ horror novels. Back in my younger years I was quite a fan of Stephen King, but as I got older my reading tastes changed to literature and history with the occasional novel or book of short stories thrown in for variety. Recently I was alerted to the fact that a Miramichi resident (who has since moved to Saint John) has written a book that I should take a look at. I was able to get a review copy of Finding Woods by Matt Mott (2014, Montag Press) from the author himself.
Harbour View (2009, Quattro Books) deals with the small inner world of a Halifax nursing home (called Harbour View Centre) in which each character adds notes of wistfulness, sadness, lightheartedness, even tragedy to be combined in a singular literary-musical tapestry that reaches through to the heart and to the mind. Ms. Brennan’s follow-up volume of …
Fight Back by Brent R. Sherrard is a Young Adult (YA) novel in the SideStreets series produced by Lorimer Publishing. They are described as: “edgy, fast-paced novels that combine real-world themes and believable characters to make for short, heart-stopping books – sure to engage the most reluctant reader.” This is the first book I have …
Drive-by Saviours by Chris Benjamin (2010, Roseway Publishing) is the first novel from this Halifax writer. It is a fascinating, complex story involving two men from two different worlds, Mark in Toronto, Canada and Bumi in Makassar, Indonesia. Being an expatriate Torontonian living on the East Coast, I am naturally drawn to any story with …
Since the author personally sent me this book to review, I am hesitant to say anything bad about it, but I thought the story was going to be different somehow. I was under the impression that this novel was about a woman’s journey across Canada to ‘find herself’ and that the subject matter would be …
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Nicholas Selig, Editor-in-Chief
