The Crooked Thing: Stories by Mary MacDonald
The Crooked Thing is a collection of intense and emotional stories, there are traumas and betrayals, loves and losses, missed opportunities and discoveries, and above all, hope.
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Instructor by Beth Follett
When Ydessa Bloom’s husband dies in a Cessna crash in a mid-Ontario lake, she rents a cottage at that lake, without really comprehending why, and stays for three months. There she meets three people who will influence her life dramatically—her landlady, a yoga teacher, and a precocious eight-year-old boy named Henry Rattle.
You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked. by Sheung-King
Love can be beautiful and disastrous at the same time. In Sheung-King’s debut novel You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked., he brilliantly evokes the complexities of an intense romantic relationship with the use of lyrical language and folk tales that draw the reader in.
Boy With a Problem by Chris Benjamin
How does a teenager deal with grief? Where do you turn in the aftermath of tragedy? What can ease the shame of a dark secret? Who can help when things feel helpless? In sparse but emotive prose, Chris Benjamin’s collection … Continue reading
Hearts Amok by Kevin Spenst
In language that twists together hobo slang and flights of troubadourish diction, Hearts Amok scrutinizes the history of the love sonnet in Surrey, England and simultaneously celebrates the tickings and tollings of one love-struck heart in Surrey, British Columbia. Examining … Continue reading
Crocuses Hatch From Snow by Jaime Burnet
Jaime Burnet’s novel tells an urgent, socially relevant story firmly rooted in time and place. Crocuses Hatch From Snow is first and foremost a novel of Halifax, Nova Scotia, one that addresses the good, the bad and the ugly from … Continue reading
Waiting for the Small Ship of Desire by Allan Cooper
I don’t often read poetry, but when I do, I like it to be moderately straightforward and logical, able to reach my heart and stir emotions, buried deep as they are. The poems in Allan Cooper’s latest collection, Waiting for … Continue reading
The Place of Us by Karen Draper
Karen Draper and her husband are ecstatic to welcome Preston, their first child, into their lives. Joyful anticipation turns to fear when they are told they must prepare to lose him.
We’ve all lost someone. It hurts. Horribly. Most often … Continue reading
Tacet by Suzanne Chiasson
Guernica Editions has published Vancouver author and poet Suzanne Chiasson's first novel, Tacet which at under 200 pages flirts with the novella classification, and as such, leaves more questions unanswered than answered. It is the story of Charlotte, a singer (of the cabaret type) and Theo, a twentysomething actor who works in a restaurant to pay the rent to his good friend and roommate Curtis.
Reproduction by Ian Williams
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.
The Forbidden Dreams of Betsy Elliot by Carolyn R. Parsons
The Forbidden Dreams of Betsy Elliot is Carolyn R. Parson’s debut novel for Newfoundland and Labrador’s Flanker Press, and she joins such authors as Ida Linehan Young and Gary Collins as storytellers of the first rank. It is set in … Continue reading
Prague by Maude Veilleux, Translated by Aleisha Jensen and Aimee Wall
An unnamed narrator, a woman who has been published as a poet and is presently writing her first novel, tells us her story in little swatches of prose.
The Philistine by Leila Marshy
Nadia Eid doesn't know it yet, but she's about to change her life. It's the end of the '80s and she hasn't seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she's twenty-five and he's missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands.
The Deserters by Pamela Molloy
Brunswick-born Pamela Molloy’s The Deserters (2018 Véhicule Press) is just about as perfect a story as you can get in under 200 pages. Practically a novella, The Deserters is about Eugenie a woman who inherits her grandmother’s derelict farm in … Continue reading
The Honey Farm by Harriet Alida Lye
Alida Lye is a writer from Richmond Hill, Ontario. Now living in Toronto, she works at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The Honey Farm is her first novel. (Note: this review is based on an Advance Reading Copy supplied by … Continue reading