Guest Review

I Am Herod by Richard Kemick (Guest Review by Chris Benjamin)

March 26, 2020

On a whim, armchair-atheist Richard Kelly Kemick joins the 100-plus cast of The Canadian Badlands Passion Play, North America’s largest production of its kind and one of the main tourist attractions in Alberta. By the time closing night is over, Kemick has a story to tell

Santiago’s Purple Skies at Morning’s Light by Bernadette Gabay Dyer (Guest Review by Ursula Pflug)

March 23, 2020

This haunting novel will carry you from Ireland, to remote northern Ontario, to the big city of Toronto and all the way to Jamaica. The teenaged heroine, Irish-Canadian, Kathleen Dunkley, was desperate to leave her haunting pasts and horrific tragedies behind her.

Boom Time by Lindsay Bird (Guest Review by Tom Halford)

March 14, 2020

There is a consistent good-natured irony and humour running through Lindsay Bird’s Boom Time.

The Girl Who Stole Everything by Norman Ravvin

June 3, 2021March 10, 2020

Norman Ravvin skillfully weaves his story with images of the past and present in Vancouver and a small village in Poland.

To See The Stars by Jan Andrews (Guest Post by Lana Shupe)

March 8, 2020

Reviewing this book To See the Stars by Jan Andrews on International Women’s Day seems particularly poignant given the story between the covers. This story encompasses the fight for the rights of women garment workers after the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911 that killed 123 women who were trapped there. Women exercising their right to strike even before they were allowed the right to vote.

Reproduction by Ian Williams

February 7, 2021February 1, 2020

Novels, like love and family, take many forms. On every page of Reproduction, his debut novel, Ian Williams finds ways to resist and defy conventional narrative practice while constructing an audacious and uniquely challenging story that crosses generational lines. In the process, he has written a poignant, resonant tale about intersecting lives and the ways that seemingly trivial decisions can have unexpected and far-reaching consequences.