All I Ask

Who among us can honestly say they’d be free of fear or embarrassment if their phone and laptop were seized and scrutinized by law enforcement? Such is the anxiety-plagued situation of Stacey Power, the protagonist ... Read More »

May 21, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Stay Where I Can See You

By Katrina Onstad

Gwen Kaplan is a content, loving, maybe even slightly smug suburban stay-at-home mom of two. She is devoted to her children and husband and comfortable with her modest, unassuming life. When she wins close to ... Read More »

May 14, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Where the Waters Meet

By Stéphanie Boulay; Ghislaine LeFranc (trans.)

A shifting, nebulous sense of identity sits at the heart of this dense, metaphoric novella by French-Canadian author Stéphanie Boulay. Set in what we can assume are the wilds of rural Quebec, Where the Waters ... Read More »

May 7, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Polar Vortex

By Shani Mootoo

There are certain strains of cannabis, which, when vaped, stretch the experience of time to include the distant past, so that one feels they have relived entire lives in an action as brief as washing ... Read More »

April 23, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

The Birth Yard

By Mallory Tater

The harrowing and powerful debut novel from Vancouver writer Mallory Tater begins in September, or, as it is known in the world of the book, Arrival. Sable Ursu has just turned 18. “Everyone on our ... Read More »

April 13, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Midnight Train to Prague

By Carol Windley

There is never a shortage of novels centred on the Second World War. Recent titles have tended to favour stories of brave women (real or imagined) taking to the skies as pilots or toiling as ... Read More »

April 13, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ Misconduct of the Heart

By Cordelia Strube

Cordelia’s Strube’s 11th novel hurtles out of the gate and never lets up. Anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, especially a chain, will instantly recognize the barely managed chaos of the kitchen that ... Read More »

April 6, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind

By Marianne Apostolides

In the pantheon of human interactions, there are few questions as fraught with peril and treachery as “Do you love me?” Not simply because of the emotional weight this question – and the various possible ... Read More »

March 26, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Ridgerunner

By Gil Adamson

Perhaps more than any other genre, the western seems a relic of the past, to the point where a new literary example – say, Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers – is almost automatically viewed as ... Read More »

March 12, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews