A Shattered Calm By Bruce F.B. Hall Victoria: FriesenPress, 2023 $24.32 / 9781039134836 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Bruce F.B. Hall retired early to travel, to sail, and to become a storyteller while using a wide range of his own experiences to become an author of note. A Shattered Calm, Hall’s self-published debut novel, is…
Read more 1888 A ‘particularly spellbinding’ thriller
Quality Time By Suzannah Showler Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2023 $24.95 / 9780771003684 Reviewed by Bill Paul * Quality Time is a romantic comedy about a young couple madly in love and living in Toronto during Rob Ford’s era as mayor. Lydie and Nico (short for Nicolas) are discovering the myriad pleasures and worries that…
Read more 1887 Truly madly deeply
Landscapes By Christine Lai Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2023 $29.95 / 9780385684248 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Landscapes by Vancouver’s Christine Lai is an ambitious, atmospheric debut novel, told artfully and often through art. The protagonist, Penelope, is dreading a reunion with Julian, her former love interest and rapist from twenty-two years ago, who is also…
Read more 1886 Artfully, maddeningly told fiction
False CreekBy Jane Munro Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2022$19.95 / 9781990776090 Reviewed by Jodi Lundgren * I happened to open False Creek after a few days’ immersion in Milton’s Renaissance epic, Paradise Lost, and was unexpectedly struck by continuities between the two works. No, Munro’s book is not a narrative poem, much less an…
Read more 1885 Poetic ‘intelligence, curiosity, wonderment, and humility’
Boy in the Blue Hammock By Darren Groth Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $22.95 / 9780889714267 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * If you’ve ever walked alone at sunset to a summit view of the place you reside and reminisced about your travels and experiences, imagine adding an ethereal mist with shimmering silvers and golds to…
Read more 1884 Dog and Boy
Troll By Logan Macnair Vancouver: Now Or Never Press, 2023 19.95 / 9781989689479 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * I used to work in an indie bookstore that would not stock Jordan Peterson’s books. At the time, I was miraculously ignorant about Peterson’s existence; life was 3.5% better. When I realized why my former boss staunchly…
Read more 1883 Like ‘signing a waiver to having your blood pressure raised’
The Malevolent Seven By Sebastien de Castell London: Jo Fletcher Books, 2023 $35.00 / 9781529422771 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Full disclosure: Sebastien de Castell is a friend of mine. We met at a writer’s group several years ago just after he published his first novel, Traitor’s Blade, a swashbuckling, sword-fighting fantasy. I read it then,…
Read more 1882 Blood magic, rat mages, and righteousness
The Wild By Owen Laukkanen Toronto: Underlined, 2021 $13.99 / 9780593179741 Reviewed by C.L. Shoemaker * YA fiction by mystery writer and Vancouver resident Owen Laukkanen, The Wild is a third-person dive into the thoughts and ideas of Dawn, a seventeen-year-old drug addict living with a drug dealer twice her age. When Dawn comes home…
Read more 1881 Grief, detox, murder, and wilderness tips
Sheltering in the Backrush: A History of Twin Islands by Jeanette Taylor Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $24.95 / 9781990776113 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Jeanette Taylor begins her book with the words: “Twin Islands, a private retreat just off the entrance to Desolation Sound Marine Park, is a small place with a big…
Read more 1880 Small place, big story
Reckoning By Patrick Friesen Vancouver, BC: Anvil Press, 2023 $18.00 / 9781772142167 Reviewed by Al Rempel * Patrick Friesen’s latest book, Reckoning, is a masterfully crafted, single long poem that ranges across all three senses of reckoning, weaving new themes together with familiar themes to those who have read his previous work. Reckoning: to calculate…
Read more 1879 What a wonder
Radio Jet Lag By Gregor Craigie Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023 $24.95 / 9781770866713 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Radio Jet Lag, a lightly satiric comic novel, is at once a paean to the city of Victoria, a detailed account of the fast-paced world of radio broadcasting, a portrait of the trials and tribulations of contemporary…
Read more 1878 Satiric comedy with ‘relevant themes and a compelling plot’
Someday I’ll Find You By C.C. Humphreys Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2023 $25.00 / 9780385690515 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Loosely based on his parents’ true story, C.C. Humphreys has produced an enthralling page-turner set in World War 2—it’s a novel you will not be able to put down. Someday I’ll Find You tells the story…
Read more 1877 Love, cloak-and-dagger espionage, and WW2
How to Clean a Fish and Other Adventures in Portugal by Esmeralda Cabral Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, May 16, 2023 $27.99 / 9781772126556 (paperback) Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Well, first of all, you won’t learn how to clean a fish. Secondly, … But let’s start at the beginning. Esmeralda Cabral is a writer living…
Read more 1876 A reluctance to join in
The Almost Widow By Gail Anderson-Dargatz Toronto: HarperAvenue, 2023 $25.99 / 9781443464482 Reviewed by Steven Brown * There may be trouble ahead. Piper’s conservation officer husband Ben was supposed to be home four hours ago. He took his boat across the wintry lake to investigate tree poaching in a proposed park area and hasn’t returned….
Read more 1875 A ‘twisty turn-y story’
Voices from Bridge River: The Bridge River Hydroelectric Projects, the People Who Built Them, and the Lives They Touched by BC Hydro Power Pioneers with Kerry Gold Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022 $29.95 / 9781773271071 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * With her caustic wit and outspoken opinions, local newspaper publisher Ma [Margaret] Murray put BC’s…
Read more 1874 Bridge River Gold
Not Quite So Handsome By Danny Peart Vancouver: Milagro Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9780994932969 Reviewed by Patrick Connors * Vancouver’s Danny Peart begins Not Quite So Handsome with the poem “Intention,” which serves as sort of a prologue to the collection. The epigraph of the poem features lyrics from “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” by…
Read more 1873 Last words, famous and otherwise
Shamus, The Urban Rez Dog, P. I. By Leslie Gentile Toronto: Cormorant/DCB, 2023 $14.95 / 9781770867079 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Teacher, singer, and now writer Leslie Gentile’s second middle grade novel is Shamus, The Urban Rez Dog, P.I. There’s no doubt juvenile readers with an appetite for fiction to match Shamus shameless pursuit of…
Read more 1872 An ‘adventure-filled whodunnit’ (for kids)
Derelict Bicycles By Dale Tracy Vancouver, BC: Anvil Press, 2022 $18.00 / 9781772141986 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * If you’ve been looking for a new book of poems that bends reality, your search is over. Derelict Bicycles is a perspective-bending book. Sometimes it’s like looking at consciousness inside out, such as in “Stomach End of…
Read more 1871 ‘Heralding the future’
Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925 by Trevor Marc Hughes Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2023 $24.95 / 9781553806806 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * When naturalist/cinematographer Hamilton Mack Laing was commissioned by the National Museum of Canada to accompany the expedition making the first ascent of Mount Logan in 1925,…
Read more 1870 Mack Laing in Alaska
You Have Been Referred: My Life in Applied Anthropology by Michael Robinson Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 2021 $21.95 / 9781988440705 Reviewed by Kirsten Bell * Many of my anthropological brethren jealously guard the boundaries of the discipline. Although there is no formal registration process for anthropologists, the standard view within most professional associations is that a…
Read more 1869 Fascinating life, flawed memoir