“Readers of Kogawa’s poetry are privy to a singular pleasure…” Marguerite Pigeon reviews From the Lost and Found Department: New and Selected Poems, by Joy Kogawa (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2023) $18.00 / 9780771005138
Short fiction collection “succeeds beautifully.” Candace Fertile reviews Anecdotes, by Kathryn Mockler (Toronto: Book*hug, 2023) $23.00 / 9781771668446
Tear by Erica McKeen Toronto: Invisible Books, 2022 $22.95 / 9781778430060 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * When Frances moves into 48 Ford Crescent with her roommates Ky, Katie, and Reese she knows that something is wrong with the house. This line from the first chapter explains her apprehension very well and sets the tone for…
Read more Horror at 48 Ford Crescent
Sonnets From a Cell by Bradley Peters Toronto: Brick Books, 2023 $22.95 / 9781771316132 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * A cell is a lonely place. It is singular. Even when many cells are linked in series, each one is solitary. Sonnets, too. Sonnets come from Italy, where words rhyme easily. Oddly enough, these polished little…
Read more Not your high school teacher’s Shakespeare
Ten Stories that Worried My Mother by Winona Kent New Westminster: Blue Devil Books, 2023 $14.99 / 9781777329495 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Best known as a writer of cozy mystery novels, New Westminster’s Winona Kent has organized this eclectic collection of mostly previously published works (dating from the early 1980s to the 2020s) chronologically….
Read more Story collection features whimsy and wit
Run the Bead by Dustin Cole Berlin: Soyos Books, 2023 $18.99 (USD) / 9780645795851 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Early in Dustin Cole’s sophomore novel, Run the Bead, the Vancouver author briefly draws attention to a minor character who writes science fiction under the pseudonym R.F. Hale. Much later, the author has his protagonist scan…
Read more ‘Audacious? Yes. Dizzying? A little, yes.’
A Brief and Endless Sea by Barbara Pelman Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023 $20.00 / 9781773861258 doom eager by Karl Meade Salt Spring Island: Rainbow Publishers/Raven Chapbooks, 2023 $22.95 / 9781778160349 Reviewed by Joe Enns * Two Vancouver Island poets draw on vast landscapes as they examine grief and mortality through life’s seasonality. Victoria-based poet…
Read more Life’s seasonality, in two poem collections
Grazie by Lucia Frangione Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023 $21.95 / 9781772015089 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Lucia Frangione’s debut novel, Grazie, captures how loss devastates the main character, Graziana or Grazie, who has mostly given up on life, even though she has a seven-year-old daughter, Hazel. The child desperately needs someone to notice and take care…
Read more From Alberta to Italy, in recovery
Elf’s Family Tree by Ron Smith, with illustrations by Ruth Campbell Oakville: Rock’s Mills Press, 2023 $14.95 / 9781772442755 Reviewed by Troy Wilson * In the highly acclaimed 2007 picture book Elf the Eagle, a young eaglet named Elf marvelled at the vastness of the tree where he lived. And in this long-awaited sequel, Elf’s…
Read more Book for kids educates, entertains, and energizes
Life at the Precipice by R.F. Vincent Victoria: FriesenPress, 2023 $20.99 / 9781039171497 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * There’s a long tradition of novels masquerading as true stories. Think of Robinson Crusoe. Or Lemuel Gulliver. Readers in 1726 were treated to the appearance of a book of travels by Captain Gulliver, who told of Lilliputians…
Read more Cpt. Sivart’s adventures in wonderland
Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng New York: MacMillan/Roaring Brook Press, 2023 $26.99 / 9781250864994 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * All that glitters is likelier ghoul than gold in Linda Cheng’s K-pop-inspired debut novel, Gorgeous Gruesome Faces. Cheng was born in Taiwan, though much of her adolescence was spent moving between different cultures and continents….
Read more 1975 Ghoulish K-pop teen horror!!
Echo Lane by Sandra Kelly Edmonton: Stonehouse Publishing, 2023 $22.00 / 1988754453 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Echo Lane by Invermere’s Sandra Kelly is an emotionally tense and compelling novel. The protagonist, Patsy, has lived an undeniably difficult life. Though she lives in Calgary, much of the present is occupied by thoughts of her past…
Read more 1968 Genius brother, dead sister, MacGuffin, oh my!
Alternator by Chris Banks Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, 2023 $19.95 / 9780889714588 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * Chris Banks has called his new book of poetry Alternator. An apt title, to this reader, as the word speaks not only to this current work, but to Banks’s overall way of writing. A car’s alternator turns mechanical…
Read more 1966 The brutal stuff of life (with a side of contentment)
Uncontrolled Flight by Frances Peck Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2023 $25.95 / 9781774390757 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * Frances Peck has once again written a story that will grip British Columbian’s fears and hearts. Her debut novel, The Broken Places, envisioned fall-out from the big earthquake predicted to hit the Vancouver area. Uncontrolled Flight’s catalyst is…
Read more 1964 Literary thriller, ‘by all accounts … thrilling’
The Palimpsest Murders–A European Travel Mystery by Reed Stirling Airdrie: BWL Publishing, 2023 $18.99 / 9780228626268 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Reed Stirling (Shades of Persephone) begins his book by giving readers the meaning of the word “palimpsest,” which features in his title. He explains: “Palimpsest—A manuscript or piece of writing material on which later…
Read more 1962 Murder mystery marred by typographic errors
In Search of April Raintree (Fortieth Anniversary Edition) by Beatrice Mosionier Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781774920916 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * To familiarize myself with In Search of April Raintree, a book a publicist had kindly sent to me that also revealed a surprise gap in my reading history, I first read…
Read more 1960 ‘[T]ender and brutal … heartbreaking and hopeful’
Sapphire and the Hollow Bone by Diana Hayes Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2023 $23.95 / 9781771715192 Reviewed by gillian harding-russell * Meditative and elegiac in its imagery and moods and finding resonances in mythology, Diana Hayes’ Sapphire and the Hollow Bone is imbued with the colour blue. Whether such details as the cherished gift of a “star…
Read more 1958 Shades and perplexities of blue
Away From the Dead by David Bergen Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2023 $24.95 / 9781773103105 Reviewed by Trish Bowering * “She asked him to read to her. And so he did. And every evening after that, he picked up his book and read… The story was both simple and difficult. She said that normally people…
Read more 1957 Hardship and a sense of hope
The World is But a Broken Heart by Michael Maitland Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2023 $19.95 / 9781773241296 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * As the title suggests, The World is But a Broken Heart is not a cheery book. In fact, the linked stories in this debut collection reveal a family for whom just…
Read more 1952 Heartbreak and ‘passages of such beauty’
In the Belly of the Sphinx by Grant Buday Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2023 $25.00 / 9781990071157 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * In the epigraph to his latest novel, Mayne Island’s Grant Buday reprints this question by Celine: “And where, I ask you, can a man escape to when he hasn’t enough madness inside him?” Celine,…
Read more 1951 Victorian history as a ‘ludicrous romp’