Death at the Harbourview Cafe by Fred Humber

Three deaths: one, a popular Chinese businessman, the second his adopted son, and the third a rookie RCMP constable in a popular cafe and store in the unassuming town of Botwood Newfoundland. If that doesn’t have the makings of a good mystery-thriller, then I don’t know what does. But this isn’t fiction, it’s a true …

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The Dwindling: A Daughter’s Caregiving Journey to the Edge of Life by Janet Dunnett

The Dwindling (2017, Journeys Press) is a unique book in the Health/Memoir genre for it is written by one-half of a “Twin Team” of identical twin sisters that endeavoured to care for their aged parents, the father with dementia, the mother with multiple health problems, pain being the primary one that caused her the most …

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The Endless Battle: The Fall of Hong Kong and Canadian POWs in Imperial Japan by Andy Flanagan

“At age twenty-five, James Andrew Flanagan began an adventure he believed might add a little excitement to his life…..his exciting journey quickly turned into a never-ending nightmare.” So begins author Andy Flanagan in his introduction to a little told part of WWII: the Battle of Hong Kong that started just hours after the Japanese attacked …

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Adventures of a Grenfell Nurse by Rosalie M. Lombard

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a meme floating around the Internet that states: “Don’t live the same year 75 times over and call it a life”. For at least two years of her substantial life (born in 1927, she is still alive as of this writing), Rosalie Lombard could not be accused of any sort of repetition as she served …

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Letters from Beauly: Pat Hennessy and the Canadian Forestry Corps in Scotland, 1940-1945 by Melynda Jarratt

[dropcap]During [/dropcap]the Second World War, hundreds of New Brunswick woodsmen joined the Canadian Forestry Corps to log private forests in the Scottish Highlands as part of the Canadian war effort. As the call to war was answered by woodsmen in England and Scotland, it left a skills gap that needed to be filled. So, England …

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Hector Maclean: The Writings of a Loyalist-Era Military Settler in Nova Scotia by Jo Currie, Keith Mercer, John G. Reid

Hector Maclean (1751–1812) was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Regiment during the War of the American Revolution. After the war, Maclean settled in the newly created county of Hants, Nova Scotia, near present-day Kennetcook. This volume presents the annotated texts of two major historical sources: the letters Maclean wrote between 1779 …

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Ghost Buck: The Legacy of One Man’s Family and its Hunting Traditions by Dean Bennett

When Islandport Press sent me a copy of Ghost Buck to review, I was a little apprehensive about reading it for it is centered around an activity I have never participated in: deer hunting. I’m not even much of an outdoors person, but this book is not in actuality about hunting or wilderness skills. It is chiefly about family and the traditions that they cherish.

The Sheryl Gordon Interview

Moncton, New Brunswick native Sheryl Gordon has curated a very interesting book that defies categorization. It is entitled A ReWORDing Life: Finding Meaning in the Wor(l)d and it is an accretion of words and their meanings contributed from over 1,000 Canadians from all walks of life. It is all dedicated to raising awareness of (and …

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Bay of Fundy’s Hopewell Rocks by Kevin Snair

[dropcap]Each [/dropcap]year thousands of visitors head to southern New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy area to visit the Hopewell Rocks, and I doubt any one comes away unimpressed by this natural rock formation enhanced by the extreme variation of the tides. When the tide is out, you can descend the stairs to the ‘ocean floor’ and …

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