Naked Defiance: A Comedy of Menace by Patrik Sampler Vancouver, BC: New Star Books, 2023 $19.00 / 9781554202003 Reviewed by Steven Brown * A Comedy of Menace is the subtitle of this fine novel. Although it can be looked at as menacing comedy, there’s a lot else going on. Naked Defiance is also an arcane…
Read more 1862 ‘Part of the spectacle’
The Broken Heart of Winter By Judy LeBlanc Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023 $24.95 / 9781773861050 Reviewed by Carole Gerson * E.M. Forster’s well-known phrase, “Only connect … Live in fragments no longer,” could well serve as the epigraph to The Broken Heart of Winter, Judy LeBlanc’s novel about the need to connect with family…
Read more 1861 ‘Only connect’
Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada, 2022 $32.00 / 9781982158804 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In Our American Friend, Whistler, BC-born author Anna Pitoniak (Necessary People) has produced a political thriller second to none. This fast-paced, page-turner tells the story of White House Correspondent, Sofie Morse, who has become jaded…
Read more 1860 A Cold War thriller
Sasquatch Discovered: The Biography of Dr. John Bindernagel by Terrance N. James, PhD. Surrey, B.C.: Hancock House, 2022 $26.95 / 9780888397515 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * Sasquatch seems to be everywhere in our daily lives, or mine anyways. My wife Linda recently purchased a block of “Sasquatch Trails” ice cream, a blend of chocolate and…
Read more 1859 A career tracking an elusive creature
Exploring Vancouver: Ten tours of the City and its Buildings (Fifth Edition) by Harold Kalman and Robin Ward Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $29.95 / 9781990776274 Reviewed by Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe * Exploring Vancouver has evolved alongside the city. Once a series of First Nations settlements amidst a stupendous maritime setting, it became a lumber…
Read more 1858 ‘Obscure as much as to reveal’
Cardboard City By Katarina Jovanovic Afterword by Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić Vancouver, BC: Tradewind Books, 2023 $14.95 / 9781990598104 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * In 2009, Katarina Jovanovic published a novel titled Kartonac. In English, this title translates to “cardboard box.” Now, as of June 15, 2023, Jovanovic has translated her novel into Cardboard City. This middle…
Read more 1857 A ‘deeply heartwarming’ YA novel
Harrowings By Cecily Nicholson Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $19.95 / 9781772014051 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * A bright red tractor churning Southern Ontario soil, BC orchards, waving prairie wheat fields. Christian uplift, and hardscrabble Euro-immigrant toil. All idealized scenes that participate in a specific farming imaginary that lets some Canadians eat our veggies without much bile—mostly…
Read more 1856 Connecting to ‘a vital abolitionist tradition’
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2023 $26.00 / 9781039005273 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * Vancouver Island-born writer Michelle Min Sterling’s debut novel Camp Zero opens in a barren landscape on the shortest day of the year. It’s 2049, and the temperatures are rising. The United States is unbearably hot and the…
Read more 1855 A ‘careful and nuanced approach to dystopia’
Entre Rive and Shore By Dominique Bernier-Cormier Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2023 $19.95 / 9781781773102870 Undoing Hours By Selina Boan Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889713963 The Punishment By Joseph Dandurand Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $21.95 / 9780889714328 Shapeshifters By Délani Valin Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $19.95 / 9780889714281 Reviewed…
Read more 1854 Gifts of reconciliation
Storylines: How Words Shape Our World by J. Edward Chamberlin Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $26.95 / 9781771623513 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * British novelist D.H. Lawrence once quipped that readers should trust the tale and not the teller. What did he mean? Prof emeritus J. Edward Chamberlin offers some possible answers in…
Read more 1853 Trust the tale not the teller?
The Last Unsuitable Man By Louise Carson Winnipeg, MB: Signature Editions, 2022 $17.95 / 9781773241159 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Louise Carson’s 14th book, The Last Unsuitable Man, is a combination of mystery, music, love affairs gone wrong, and slow-paced twists and thrills. The thing I liked best about it is the division of the…
Read more 1852 Ex-lovers, ex-husbands, and murder
Sunsetter By Curtis LeBlanc Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781770416901 Reviewed by Bill Paul * In the fictional prairie town of Perron, it’s a tradition for residents to attend the annual Sunsetter Rodeo and Fair held in late May. For Dallan and Brooks, two close friends in their late teens, it’s an occasion to…
Read more 1851 ‘A town without pity’
What Remains of Elsie Jane by Chelsea Wakelyn Toronto, ON: Dundurn Press, 2023 $24.99 / 9781459750845 Review by Rhea Tregebov * “We witness and absorb the subjective sensory patterns of those we love, just by virtue of spending time with them. And when they’re gone, even when they’re gone for good, a part of them…
Read more 1850 ‘The realities of human mourning’
its th sailors life / still in treetment: meditaysyuns from gold mountain By bill bissett Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772013917 Reviewed by Cathy Ford * To begin at the beginning, first, I owe this book, its author, and the editorial review accompanying, apologies. I had hoped to review this book last November, then receiving…
Read more 1849 Poetic ‘meditaysyuns’
Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience by Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772013627 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * There was an opportunity to post this review on National Indigenous Peoples Day, but then, I got to thinking: why do we have to pick just one day to look at…
Read more 1848 Share and share alike
Atomweight by Emi Sasagawa New Westminster, BC: Tidewater Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781990160165 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Emi Sasagawa’s debut novel, Atomweight, tackles a number of important issues such as racism and homophobia through its central character and narrator, Aki, who leaves familiar privilege in West Vancouver to attend London School of Economics. Her…
Read more 1847 Coming out swinging in London
The Life of Gronsky By Bill Engleson Victoria BC: Tellwell Talent, 2023 $26.95 / 0228888417 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * What does it mean to understand a life? Any novelist brave enough to attempt to distil a character’s life might think of Laurence Sterne’s monumental and classic Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, possibly the…
Read more 1846 An ‘honest expression of humility and truth’
To the Bridge by Yasuko Thanh Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, 2023 $24.95 / 9780735244672 Reviewed by W.H. New * Specifically, Yasuko Thanh’s To the Bridge concerns a suicide attempt. More generally, it deals with time: the times when characters walked ‘to the bridge’ and sat, a different time when one of them jumped, and the time before…
Read more 1845 Tremors
Walking the Camino: On Earth As It Is By Maryanna Gabriel Lawrencetown Beach, NS: Pottersfield Press, 2023 $21.95 / 9781990770180 Reviewed by Carellin Brooks * Maryanna Gabriel’s Walking the Camino has little in the way of conventional plot, but a journey of eight hundred kilometres and forty-plus days imposes its own narrative urgency. The route…
Read more 1844 A ‘trek of her own’
Cactus Gardens By Evelyn Lau Vancouver, BC: Anvil Press, 2022 $18 / 9781772141948 Reviewed by Joe Enns * Cactus Gardens, Evelyn Lau’s ninth poetry collection, drifts among seasons of lost relationships, green-grey geographies, and the eerie effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as though “beyond time, suspended / in transit, outcomes unclear.” The collection evokes vivid…
Read more 1843 ‘Bold lines and vivid imagery’