Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

The Burning Girl

By Claire Messud

Twelve-year-olds are much more sophisticated these days than they used to be, at least in Claire Messud’s fictional Boston suburb of Royston. Best friends since nursery school, Julia Robinson and Cassie Burnes are only in ... Read More »

August 30, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Appraisal

By Anna Porter

The plot of The Appraisal finds Helena Marsh, an art expert skilled at disguises and unusually adept at killing, trying to authenticate a Titian painting for an elderly art collector named Géza Márton, whose family ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

In the Cage

By Kevin Hardcastle

Kevin Hardcastle’s debut novel demonstrates that the violent depredations dramatized in the fiction of Cormac McCarthy are not confined to the Texas–Mexico border: rural Canada works just fine as a locale. In the Cage finds ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

First Snow, Last Light

By Wayne Johnston

The publication of Wayne Johnston’s 1998 novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, brought as much consternation as praise. While Johnston’s portrayal of Newfoundland’s “father of Confederation,” Joey Smallwood, proved contentious, another character emerged as a ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ If Clara

By Martha Baillie

Martha Baillie’s sixth novel is a metafictional story told from the points of view of four characters: Clara, a reclusive, mentally ill writer; Julia, a curator and Clara’s sister, who questions Clara’s sanity; Maurice, Julia’s ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels