In a fast-paced pair of early chapter books, authors examine social politics and community-building, though in discrete historical eras—contemporary Canada and BC in the 1880s. —Alison Acheson reviews A Home For Lucy, by Mike Levitt (Toronto: Lorimer Books, 2026) $19.95 / 9781459420595 and Peril at Hell’s Gate, by Bill Freeman (Toronto: Lorimer Books, 2026) $19.95 / 9781459420625
“Who committed the murders and why and what to do about it and what happens later takes up the rest of this remarkable story, the seventh book in what has evolved as author Geoff Mynett’s stand-out series of deep dives into formerly obscure corners of British Columbia history. William Brown is the subject of the author’s previous book in the series, A Gentleman of Considerable Talent.” Steven Brown reviews The Fort George Murders of 1823: Crises and Coexistence in New Caledonia, by Geoff Mynett (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2026) $28.00 / 9781773861791
“While Robson’s personality is overshadowed by the unilateral authority of Sir James Douglas, or the eccentric intensity of Amor De Cosmos, Antak posits that he was just as formative in the shaping of BC. Indeed, as a social and political reformer, Robson played a driving role in the establishment of a distinctly Canadian brand of liberalism on the Pacific coast. While Antak never makes the comparison, his portrayal of Robson paints a picture of something like a Gladstone of the Pacific.” Matthew Downey reviews John Robson: British Columbian, by Ivan E. Antak (Victoria: Tellwell Talent, 2025) $25 / 9781834184142
“With a new book scheduled to be released in the fall, author and curator emeritus at the Royal British Columbia Museum Robert D. Turner is continuing his chronicling of British Columbia’s history of rail and steam. The Steamer SS Moyie: The Biography of the Sweetheart of Kootenay Lake, A Continuing Story Beginning in 1898 is being assembled by Harbour Publishing…” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with historian Robert D. Turner.
“The title of the book, Reconciling, demonstrates the ongoing process of reconciliation and meaning of Larry’s journey through life. The book opens with a description by co-author Scott Steedman of Larry Grant, ‘…a short, weathered man of eighty-five years… an Elder of both the Vancouver Chinese community and the Musqueam Indian Band.’ Steedman asked Larry if he was interested in writing his life story one day. It took eight years, starting in 2017.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Reconciling: A Lifelong Struggle to Belong, by Larry Grant, in conversation with Scott Steedman (Toronto: ECW Press, 2025) $26.95 / 9781770417984
“Although the convention attracted its fair share of critics at the time, situating it in the context of what came before and after suggests it was not a write-off but an effective strategy (at least in theory) for mobilizing confederation supporters and keeping the colonial government on alert.” Sam Kiiskila, recent UVic graduate, contributes the historical essay “A ‘Lover of Beauty’ on his way to Yale”: Revisiting the 1868 Yale Convention
“Keeping the Books is a family history par excellence, the best of its genre that I have read, which traces the life of Alene Peck, a homesteader’s daughter in the Peace River district of British Columbia. It was a colourful life that Alene has chronicled and saved through a trove of letters, notes, and photographs that upon her death were bequeathed to her son, Ross Peck, who lives today in Skookumchuck, in BC’s Kootenays.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Keeping the Books: The life and times of a Peace River Homesteader’s Daughter, by Ross Peck (Cranbrook: Wild Horse Creek Press, 2025) $21.95 / 9781069794703
“By the time I got to Simon Fraser University in the early 1970s, Jim Harding had already left campus but his legacy lingered as SFU continued to fester with student unrest after the historic strike in 1967. That event labelled SFU a ‘radical’ campus and Harding was part of the cohort of students and faculty that openly challenged and defied the actions of the university administration. It was a bold, exciting, and educational moment. Harding was among the leaders.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Long Sixties: Stories from the New Left, by Jim Harding [ed.] (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2026) $29 / 9781773638034
“Seto, mourning the past and given time to resurrect her creativity, recreated the buildings of memory and left them empty so that memory and desire could replace the ghosts inhabiting them with real lives configured with real information, the sensory details, smells and sounds that gave them life.” Linda Rogers reviews Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History, by Donna Seto (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2025) $29.99 / 9781487011970
“Victoria’s urban landscape is littered with these remnants or references, in this case, to the golden age of Victoria’s great garden estates. They are a part of a legacy of similar markers, such as iron curbs that once protected sidewalks from steel-rimmed carriage wheels, hitching posts for horses stabled in the Rockland and Fernwood neighbourhoods, or small pockets of Garry Oaks that survived from a pre-settlement habitat that nurtured the Lekwungen people. These touchstones of community memory lend richness and meaning to the built heritage that tells Victoria’s story.” Martin Segger contributes the article Silent Sentinels, adapted from his upcoming book Tending Eden: A garden history of Victoria.
“The book is primarily a record of the concept, strategies, and outcomes from an innovative government policy-development approach proposed by then-Premier Glen Clark. At the time Clark’s financially-strapped government was facing ‘an imminent economic crisis.’ The authors explain that Premier Clark was faced with almost 240,000 public employee contracts expiring on the same day, as well as two prior years of restraint.” Richard Fyfe reviews 35 Accords: Re-imagining British Columbia’s Public Sector Labour Relations
by Tony Penikett and John Calvert (Cambridge, UK: Ethics International Press, 2025) $57 / 9781837112791
Historical novel imagines the life of a late Victorian premier’s wife: “Certainly, Constance Skinner Davie represents the many untold women who were influential in the background of a political system that excluded them. Green brings much needed attention to the women behind BC’s historical figures and politicians.” —Vanessa Winn reviews From Primitive Shack to Premier’s Wife: The Constance Davie Story, by Valerie Green (Victoria: self-published, 2026) $24.50 / 9798278536727
“Split Nets” and “Stormy Seas,” excerpts from Rags to Riches: The Nelson Brothers Fisheries Story, by W.B. MacDonald with Stuart Nelson (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press: 2026) $27.00 / 9781773861777
“The lines are tough and full of bones, like dried salmon, but respond well to chewing”: epic in size and scope, a posthumous volume grapples with literary and cultural inheritance, as well as the desecrations of BC’s colonial-capitalist history. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl (The Book of Gates, Vol. 1), by Tom McGauley (Afterword by Luke Franklin) (Moncton: Galleon Books, 2025) $29.99 / 9781998122080
As Luba, a child in a remote Doukhobor community located in southern British Columbia, hides in a root cellar, she is flooded with memories of the harrowing events that led to her captivity. “The Invisible Child,” a short story by Denise Evdokimoff.
An “honourable and compassionate compendium of heartfelt statements from people who were willing to go to jail for their beliefs.” Sadly, it’s “over-long and at times tediously repetitive” too. —Ron Verzuh reviews Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain, edited by Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, and Tim Bray (Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2024) $29.95 / 9781771136631
Debut volume of poetry exhibits “a clarity of intent and style fully mature and confident in its own power.” —Cathy Ford reviews Boundary Territory, by Renée Harper (Surrey: Now or Never Publishing, 2024) $19.95 / 9781989689776
“Remembering, as British writer George Orwell showed in his Homage to Catalonia, brings bloody thoughts to the surface and can unearth opposing memories. Spaner does not shy from including such moments and these add a tough realism to the novel.” —Ron Verzuh reviews Keefer Street, by David Spaner (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781553807209
A ‘fairy tale wedding’ provides a novelist with the opportunity to create “a chaotic, soul-baring, multi-generational family drama.” —Bill Paul reviews The Wedding, by Gurjinder Basran (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771624169
“In a regionalized case of a murder that occurred in the heart of British Columbia, deep in its rural country, Warren asks his readers to draw upon universal empathetic feelings of disgust at the crimes of Shearing and sympathy for those impacted.” —Matthew Downey reviews Murder Times Six: The True Story of the Wells Gray Park Murders, by Alan R. Warren (Self-published, 2020) $20.00 / 9781989980132