Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Cecilian Vespers

By Anne Emery

After the tumultuous personal upheaval that Halifax lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins underwent in Barrington Street Blues, this fourth volume in Anne Emery’s mystery series gives him welcome respite on the family front. This time, ... Read More »

July 2, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Automatic World

By Struan Sinclair

Winnipeg-based author Struan Sinclair’s daring and accomplished debut novel is that rare type of book that sets out to be deliberately difficult. Take the book’s puzzle-like structure, which comprises four disparate narratives nested inside one ... Read More »

July 2, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Incident Report

By Martha Baillie

As its title suggests, Martha Baillie’s fourth novel consists of a series of “incident reports” written by Miriam Gordon, a 35-year-old employee of the Toronto Public Library. Miriam is a “Public Service Assistant” at Allan ... Read More »

July 2, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Perfecting

By Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

Toronto writer Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s second novel pivots on the character of Curtis Woolf, who flees his New Mexico home for Ontario, where he establishes up a religious commune known as the Family. Years later, Curtis’s ... Read More »

July 2, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Step Closer

By Tessa McWatt

Tessa McWatt’s fourth novel for adults is a powerful and suspenseful examination of relationships and the secrets that can both create and destroy them. McWatt creates suspense by flashing backward and forward in time. In ... Read More »

June 15, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Underground

By June Hutton

June Hutton’s Underground follows Canadian Al Fraser from his time as a 16-year-old boy soldier in the First World War, through labour jobs and work camps during the Great Depression, to a final combat stint ... Read More »

April 29, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Tainted

By Ross Pennie

The latest suspense novel written by a real-life Canadian doctor demonstrates that our country’s contribution to the medical thriller subgenre is not so much evolving as stabilizing. Tainted immediately admits Brantford-based physician-cum-university professor Ross Pennie ... Read More »

April 29, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels