The Vegetable Museum by Michelle Mulder Victoria: Orca Books, 2019 $10.95 / 9781459816794 Reviewed by George M. Johnson * Michelle Mulder cultivates rich soil (sorry I couldn’t resist that) in her middle-grade novel about 13 year-old Chloë Becher, forced to move from Montreal to Victoria with her Dad when her parents separate. Initially she finds…
Read more #724 Postwar gardening therapy
Shut Up You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji Vancouver: VS. Books, an imprint of Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $17.95 / 9781551527550 Reviewed by Jenna Butler * Téa Mutonji’s 2019 short story collection Shut Up You’re Pretty is the first book to be released under Arsenal Pulp Press’s VS. Books, a new imprint publishing work by young…
Read more #722 A punchy and brilliant debut
The Ventriloquist’s Dummy Tells All: A Politically Incorrect Novel by Ernest Hekkanen Nelson: New Orphic Publishers, 2019 $20 / 9781894842273 Reviewed by Sean Arthur (Art) Joyce The Ventriloquist’s Dummy can be purchased directly from New Orphic Publishers at 706 Mill Street, Nelson, B.C. V1L 4S5. The cost is $25, which includes postage — Ed. *…
Read more #720 Masks, midgets, and junk culture
10 Sure-fire Ways to NAIL Your First Draft by Carol Anne Shaw * After several years of reading, scribbling, blogging, Facebooking, and trying to look serious on LinkedIn, I’ve come to realize that this writing-a-novel thing is actually a no-brainer. Because there are only ten necessary rules for success. I’m not lying. (I’ll get to…
Read more #713 Writing tips from Cowichan
Arrow’s Fall by Joel Scott Toronto: ECW Press, 2019 $18.99 / 9781770414273 Reviewed by John Hutchings * This is the second book by Chemainus-based sailor and author Joel Scott, featuring the further adventures of his principal two characters and their old wooden boat, the Arrow. Having not read the first book, I can attest that…
Read more #705 Batten down the hatches
A Deceptive Devotion: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019 $16.95 / 9781771513005 Reviewed by Kim Naqvi * “He doesn’t seem like the romantic type. I mean, he’s kind of old.” “The world is full of mysteries, Constable.” Clever dialogue, and an ear for human flight and fumbles, places Iona Whishaw’s…
Read more #694 My name is Lane Winslow
Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2019 $21.95 / 9781771963091 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Rarely does a book draw me in from page one, but such was the case with Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock. The protagonist is a delightful six year-old boy, Frankie West, and the reader soon learns…
Read more #691 Frankie goes to New York
Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante Montreal: Metonymy Press, 2019 $18.95 / 9780994047199 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * Are there popular reference works about successful TV shows? The Encyclopedia of Breaking Bad or A Viewer’s Guide to The Brady Bunch certainly wouldn’t have universal appeal, though perhaps there’d be a guaranteed readership…
Read more #689 Little Blue Island almanac
Little Fortress by Laisha Rosnau Hamilton, Ontario: Wolsak & Wynn, 2019 $22.00 / 9781928088998 Reviewed by Mary-Ann and David Stouck * What fascinated me as a novelist was how did these women who led these really large lives — these lives that took place all over the world — come to then seclude themselves in…
Read more #686 Exile on Pleasant Valley Road
Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771833905 See here for the audiobook Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Don’t judge a book by its cover … at your peril. That’s a song worth listening to but sometimes, and in this case, it is all there, the rabbit’s final bone crushing scream….
Read more #680 All hat and no soapbox
Throw Mama from the Boat and Other Ferry Tales by PJ Reece Gibsons: Rolling West Productions, 2018 $16.95 / 9780995323537 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * PJ Reece’s book Throw Mama from the Boat: and other Ferry Tales promises to excite and explore with wild imagination from the word go. This is a collection of thirteen neatly…
Read more #672 Coastal escapes and departures
The Great Happiness: Stories and Comics by M.A.C. Farrant Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $14.95 / 9781772012217 Reviewed by Valerie Green * I’ve learned through the years that book covers can be deceiving. Such was the case with M.A.C. Farrant’s book The Great Happiness, which shows a young girl, some flowers, and a small bird. It enticed…
Read more #671 Connect the dots
A One-Handed Novel by Kim Clark Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin, 2018 $24.00 / 9781987915624 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * What is the difference between desirability and disability? Author Kim Clark explores these ideas and more in her fast-paced and farcical work of fiction, A One-Handed Novel. The book’s main character, Melanie Farrell, is a forty-something, face-planting,…
Read more #659 Move over Bridget Jones
The Forbidden Purple City: Stories by Philip Huynh Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions 2019 $22.95 / 9781773100784 Reviewed by William New * Philip Huynh’s first book is an engaging, disturbing, wonderful collection of nine short stories. Each story’s intriguing characters are living lives worth thinking about and caring about, each character compromised by choice and circumstance, each…
Read more #656 Facing all the ghosts
The Return of the Shadow by Kunio Yamagishi London: Austin Macauley, 2018 £6.16 (U.K) $25.95 (Cdn) / 9781786937155 / Please order from your local bookstore or through Book Depository who offer free worldwide shipping. Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy * In July 2019, The Return of the Shadow, by Comox Valley writer Kunio Yamagishi, was shortlisted…
Read more #645 The journeys of Eizo Osada
Greenwood by Michael Christie Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2019 $22.00 / 9780771024450 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Michael Christie’s latest novel unfolds over a span of one hundred and thirty years, from 1908 until 2038. The precipitating event for what will follow is a head-on collision between two passenger trains near the…
Read more #642 Tales of timber & heartwood
I Saw Three Ships: West End Stories by Bill Richardson Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $16.95 / 9781772012330 Reviewed by Harvey De Roo * In his introduction to this delightful book, Bill Richardson assures us in a Wildean mot that “The past is far too precious to waste on something as cheap as nostalgia.” But I Saw…
Read more #639 The characters of English Bay
Meteorites: Stories by Julie Paul Victoria: Brindle & Glass, an imprint of TouchWood Editions, 2019 $22.00 / 9781927366820 Reviewed by William New * In a much quoted phrase, the Nigerian writer Ben Okri observes that the “fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection, there is…
Read more #633 Uneasy stories, imperfect lives
Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771833905 See here for the audiobook Reviewed by Sally Campbell * Some books are simply better than others. This fictionalized memoir, set in Britain during the Second World War, takes on big questions — mental fragility, emotional resilience, demonization of dissenters, tribalism, family secrets…
Read more #630 Breaking with the Tribe
A Promise on the Horizon by Ann Pearson Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2019 $24.95 / 9781989467022 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Ann Pearson’s work of biographical fiction, A Promise on the Horizon, will be greatly esteemed by historians, academic researchers, and lovers of the Napoleonic era. Pearson takes the reader on a delightful journey of…
Read more #625 To Italy with Stendhal