Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Harshly Purring

By Michael Knox

It’s been 30 years since Blue Velvet peeled the designer veil off of suburbia to reveal the dark impulses scurrying around underneath, and the books and movies that have since picked up that film’s themes ... Read More »

June 20, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Rich and Poor

By Jacob Wren

Over the few days in March I spent reading Jacob Wren’s new novel, the so-called “one per cent” were in the headlines a lot: billionaire blowhard Donald Trump had all but sewn up the Republican ... Read More »

May 31, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Thirteen Shells

By Nadia Bozak

A stranger who’s read the nation’s coming-of-age fiction but never stepped foot in Canada could easily be pushed to exclaim, “What the hell happened there?” If bygone Anne of Avonlea’s biggest adolescent mishap involved dyed ... Read More »

May 26, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Torp

By Michael Mirolla

In his new novel, writer and publisher Michael Mirolla uses the 1970 FLQ crisis as the backdrop for a story about two young people caught up in a relationship they cannot control – one of ... Read More »

May 17, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Death Valley

By Susan Perly

Susan Perly’s first novel since 2001’s Love Street, Death Valley is a postmodern escapade through America’s nuclear playground. The setting is 2006, in the midst of George W. Bush’s divisive war on terror. The novel ... Read More »

May 17, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Perfect World

By Ian Colford

Halifax writer Ian Colford is very good at crafting scenes of violence. His previous novel, The Crimes of Hector Tomás, contains a sequence in which the central character is strapped to a metal bedframe and ... Read More »

May 17, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Smoke

By Dan Vyleta

Contemporary novels heralded as “Dickensian” are usually so only superficially: they’re just long books with multiple plots and a sprinkling of grotesque or quirky characters. Only rarely do they capture the other qualities that earned ... Read More »

May 9, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels