The Octopus Has Three Hearts by Rachel Rose Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $22.95 / 9781771622882 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Rachel Rose’s first collection of short stories, The Octopus Has Three Hearts, is as terrific as readers of her poetry would expect. The 14 stories feature various characters in different kinds of crises,…
Read more 1205 Needy people & creature comforts
Music from a Strange Planet by Barbara Black Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2021 $22.95 / 9781773860589 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Barbara Black’s website informs us that Music from a Strange Planet, her debut short story collection, “began as a series of flash fictions exploring the intersection of human and insect existence” and “metamorphosed” into…
Read more 1204 Thresholds and transformations
Wild Bird by Leanne Baugh Markham, ON: Red Deer Press, 2021 $14.95 / 9780889956360 Reviewed by Valerie Green * A very vivid opening scene in Leanne Baugh’s book Wild Bird might well seem a little too graphic for young adult readers. Nonetheless, it is a necessary opening to a story about the hardships faced by…
Read more 1203 Kate Harding steps up
INTERVIEW: Marion Quednau with The Ormsby Review Marion Quednau has won numerous awards for both her fiction and her poetry, including a National Magazine Award, and the People’s Choice Award when shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her fiction has received critical acclaim, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, when the late Mordecai Richler…
Read more 1200 Interview with Marion Quednau
Wanda by Barbara Lambert Madeira Park & Amsterdam: Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9780978005474 Reviewed by David Stouck * Most of the fiction written by Barbara Lambert has been set outside of Canada. Her prize-winning stories, collected as A Message for Mr. Lazarus (2000), take place largely in Costa Rica, her full-length novel,…
Read more 1197 The orchardist’s daughter
Night Watch: The Vet Suite by Gillian Wigmore Picton, ON: Invisible Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781988784588 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Veterinarians are absurdly villainized, unsung heroes. After my Australian Shepherd suffered THC poisoning, my respect and appreciation for veterinarians has only grown. Mercifully, Gillian Wigmore, daughter of a veterinarian, has written three novellas combined…
Read more 1184 Veterinary grace & suite
ESSAY: Why I love Lucy Maud by Carol Volkart * When I first met Lucy Maud Montgomery in her journals a few months ago, she was a sparkling flirt of 14 tumbling off sleds in winter snowbanks, losing her hat and laughing, laughing, laughing. When I said goodbye to her recently, she was an anguished…
Read more 1183 Why I love Lucy Maud
Lucky Jack Road: A Stella Mosconi Mystery by J.G. Toews Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020 $19.99 / 9781771615082 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * This, the second in the Stella Mosconi Mystery series, invites delving into mystery subgenres. Lucky Jack Road has the hallmarks of a cozy mystery: the amateur detective, typically female, practises her sleuthing…
Read more 1182 Death on Elephant Mountain
A Brief View from the Coastal Suite by Karen Hofmann Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 $21.95 / 9781774390177 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * If, come the apocalypse, some powers wanted to recreate the style and design of white, urban life in Canada in general and Vancouver in particular, they would find material aplenty in Karen Hofmann’s…
Read more 1181 Getting & spending in Lotusland
The List of Last Chances by Christina Myers Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2021 $22.95 / 9781773860596 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * The List of Last Chances by Christina Myers is a wild adventure across the endless and fascinating country of Canada. Our two protagonists—Ruthie and Kay—are hilarious in their encounters and differing experiences. While Ruthie…
Read more 1176 Road trip of change and chance
Murder 101 by Richard Boyer Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $16.99 / 9781525584527 Reviewed by Robin Fisher * I have great admiration for those of my academic colleagues who, after a career of doing empirical work, then change gears and write successful fiction. The President to whom I reported at Mount Royal University, David Marshall, has in…
Read more 1170 A master class in murder
Fishing for Birds by Linda Quennec Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2019 $22.95 / 9781771336130 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * Fishing for Birds tells the stories of three women who live on islands: Kate, a widow in her thirties, has settled in a small cabin on the fictional BC Gulf Island of Britannia; Kate’s mother, Nora, is…
Read more 1168 Islands are for overcoming
Six Weeks to Live by Catherine McKenzie Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada (Atria Books), 2021 $27.00 / 9781982159214 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Although Six Weeks to Live begins on a very sombre note and appears to be a book about dealing with imminent death, author Catherine McKenzie soon turns her story into a psychological…
Read more 1162 Six of one, three of another
The Four-Faced Liar: Short Stories and Flash Fiction by P.W. Bridgman Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $25.95 / 9781771714143 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Sometimes you read a story and say, Wait, that’s my story: how did the author know about that? The $900,000 windfall, the Vancouver house-buying, the wandering spouse. Has he been spying on…
Read more 1158 Beckon the distant and strange
INTERVIEW: Sarah Mintz with Nathaniel G. Moore Sarah Mintz grew up in Greenwood (BC), Goose Bay, Victoria, Courtenay, Vancouver, Montreal, and Moose Jaw and now calls Victoria home. She’s worked at video stores, thrift stores, pet stores, managed buildings, shovelled snow, and answered the phone. As a recent graduate of the English M.A program at…
Read more 1156 A good deal of handwringing
All That Monk Business by Barry Kennedy Surrey: Now Or Never Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781989689202 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * A novel can’t be everything to everyone, but some novels can be many things to many people. All That Monk Business, by actor, comedian, and writer Barry Kennedy, is one of these. It’s not…
Read more 1154 The elusive shape of life
Prologue to Love by Martha Ostenso, with an introduction by Hannah McGregor Picton, ON: Invisible Publishing, 2020 (first published in New York by Dodd, Mead & Co., 1932) $23.95 / 9781988784595 Reviewed by Miranda Marini * The thing about novels being situated in an actual, geographic place is how those depictions then resonate with readers…
Read more 1151 A Kamloops classic
Victoria Sees It by Carrie Jenkins Toronto: Penguin Random House (Strange Light), 2021 $24.95 / 9780771049279 Reviewed by Kathy Mezei * Victoria sees it, perhaps. And so perhaps will the reader, who is handed one of many clues to the novel’s mysteries on the very first page: “Seeing the world as it really is makes…
Read more 1149 Looking in the wrong place
A Lethal Lesson: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2021 $16.95 / 9781771513531 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * From Agatha Christie to Louise Penny, writers of mystery series have known the value of a village to ground their plots: establish winning recurring main and secondary characters, imagine quotidian landmarks in extraordinary…
Read more 1147 Kootenay schoolhouse sleuthing
Trappings by Vanessa Winn Victoria: Oakheart Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781777040802 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Trappings takes place in the early colonial days of British Columbia and excellently portrays those challenging times — most especially for women. For those not familiar with Victoria’s history and the many intertwining fur-trading families connected to the Hudson’s…
Read more 1141 Kate Work of Point Ellice