Fiction: Novels

★ Cricket in a Fist

Mothers and daughters, guilt and anger, holding onto the past or abandoning it completely – these are the themes that course through Naomi K. Lewis’s stellar debut novel. The book, which is based on Lewis’s ... Read More »

March 28, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Remains of the Dead

By Wendy Roberts

The tagline for B.C. author Wendy Roberts’ newest novel, The Remains of the Dead, dubs it “A Ghost Dusters Mystery.” In it, Sadie Novak operates Scene-2-Clean, a crime-scene cleanup company that pretty much corners the ... Read More »

March 27, 2008 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels

The Toss of a Lemon

By Padma Viswanathan

In this debut novel, Padma Viswanathan offers a sweeping narrative of a Brahmin family in India that must redefine itself when the nation undergoes political and social upheaval. The Toss of a Lemon is an ... Read More »

March 27, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Sealed Letter

By Emma Donoghue

In 1864, divorce was still rare in Britain (as elsewhere), and the real one that Emma Donoghue forensically reconstructs in her new novel was a national scandal. The wronged vice-admiral Henry Codrington and his sexually ... Read More »

March 24, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The Boys in the Trees

By Mary Swan

It’s a common criticism of Canadian fiction that many of our authors produce bleak and depressing books. Mary Swan fits this rather unflattering profile, but in her case, it works. Her first novel, The Boys ... Read More »

February 4, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Falling

By Anne Simpson

From the very first sentence of Falling, award-winning poet Anne Simpson’s second novel, it’s clear that this will be a story about grief and the constrained living that goes on around it. On the first ... Read More »

January 28, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

How the Dead Dream

By Lydia Millet

The hero of novelist Lydia Millet’s latest moral fantasy is named Thomas, but his mother and almost everyone else call him “T.” He isn’t an Everyman, but he is a modern type, a young Californian ... Read More »

January 14, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

At a Loss for Words

By Diane Schoemperlen

Diane Schoemperlen is the author of one of the best collections of short stories ever published in Canada, 1998’s Forms of Devotion. Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction in 1998, the book ... Read More »

January 7, 2008 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The Cruellest Month

By Louise Penny

Many mystery buffs have credited Louise Penny with the revival of the type of traditional murder mystery made famous by Agatha Christie. Such claims are somewhat exaggerated for a career only three books old, yet ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels