Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Shot-Blue

By Jesse Ruddock

Tristan is always alone. Sure, there are people around him, names and voices that float in and out of Jesse Ruddock’s debut novel. These characters bounce questions and attempts at intimacy off of Tristan’s young, ... Read More »

January 9, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Chosen Maiden

By Eva Stachniak

Many works of fiction take as their inspiration true events and persons of historical significance, but few do so as lovingly and imaginatively as Eva Stachniak’s fifth novel. The Chosen Maiden is a fictionalized account ... Read More »

January 3, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Minds of Winter

By Ed O’Loughlin

When the wrecks of the expeditionary ships HMS Erebus and Terror, lost while searching for the Northwest Passage in the mid–19th century, were finally discovered (in 2014 and 2016, respectively), the events marked the final ... Read More »

January 3, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Weather Inside

By Emily Saso

Indoors or out, actual or perceived, the weather in Emily Saso’s assured debut novel tends toward the weird and tumultuous. Set in a contemporary but unappealing Toronto – “a place bloated with condo developments and ... Read More »

December 21, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Gambling with Fire

By David Montrose

The term “Canadian noir” sounds almost oxymoronic – as a concept, it runs contrary to both our complacently benign self-image and our international reputation as wholesome, apologetic, and frostbitten. The strange difficulty of convincing ourselves ... Read More »

December 15, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Hag-Seed

By Margaret Atwood

Any act of artistic performance shares a close affinity with magic. Stephen King has made this connection in numerous essays, forewords, and introductions to his own work, and in his recent memoir, Bruce Springsteen refers ... Read More »

December 12, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Holy Rule

By Mary Frances Coady

With Holy Rule, Mary Frances Coady revisits the cloistered Catholic world she explored in her 2009 short-story collection, The Practice of Perfection. Those stories followed a group of novitiates taking their first steps toward becoming ... Read More »

December 12, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Performance

By Ann Eriksson

Music and money drive Ann Eriksson’s fifth novel. Hana Knight is a gifted young pianist who narrates the story of her family, her struggles as a musician, and her relationship with a deranged homeless woman ... Read More »

November 29, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels