Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Tide Road

By Valerie Compton

Tide Road is Valerie Compton’s first novel, but she has been writing short fiction for 20 years and has been shortlisted twice for the CBC Literary Awards. Her writing is confident, complex, and mature. Her ... Read More »

May 27, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Monoceros

By Suzette Mayr

With relentless intensity, the opening of Suzette Mayr’s fourth novel traces the joys and despairs of 17-year-old Patrick Furey in the final days before his suicide. Although he dies in the first chapter, Furey remains ... Read More »

May 24, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Fall from Grace

By Wayne Arthurson

It’s thrilling, for a reader, to discover a new amateur detective devoid of stock clichés, unique and refreshingly human. To the august company of Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce and Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe ... Read More »

May 11, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Progress

By Michael V. Smith

The second novel from Michael V. Smith (whose first, Cumberland, was nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award), opens with a death, seen from a great distance. Helen Massey is picnicking at the grave of ... Read More »

May 11, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Lucky Sperm Club

By Rebecca Eckler

Multi-million-dollar inheritances, credit-card-carrying kids, and $10,000 birthday parties for eight-year-olds: welcome to the world of the Lucky Sperm Club. The only way to be admitted to this exclusive group is to be born to insanely ... Read More »

May 11, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Benevolence

By Cynthia Holz

Altruism, self-sacrifice, and the self-serving nature of magnanimity lie at the core of Toronto author Cynthia Holz’s fourth novel. The book examines the lives of 53-year-old Ben Wasserman, a psychiatrist who analyzes the mental states ... Read More »

May 11, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels