Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Matadora

By Elizabeth Ruth

What does it mean to be a woman? To be alive? In her audacious third novel, Elizabeth Ruth examines such grand, universal questions through an historically specific mise-en-scène. Set in the days before the Spanish ... Read More »

May 13, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bone and Bread

By Saleema Nawaz

Five years after Mother Superior, her breakthrough collection of short stories, Saleema Nawaz returns with a big and beautiful novel set in Montreal and Ottawa. While there’s much travelling in this book  – through time ... Read More »

April 22, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Firebird

By Susanna Kearsley

Successfully blending a contemporary romance with an historical adventure is no easy task, but in The Firebird, author Susanna Kearsley goes one step further, bestowing supernatural abilities upon her protagonist. Since birth, Nicola Marter has ... Read More »

April 17, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Under Budapest

By Ailsa Kay

The legacy of Soviet aggression against Hungary is very much apparent in Ailsa Kay’s arresting debut novel. While the book’s early chapters resemble a treatise on how academia and “lived experience” are liable to interpret ... Read More »

April 17, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Sister Mine

By Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson’s fifth novel for adults delves into the areas of speculative fiction and the Caribbean oral tradition her writing is best known for. The story opens in Toronto, a setting that at first glance ... Read More »

March 25, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Almost Criminal

By E.R. Brown

Despite the skunky haze of marijuana drifting through every chapter, E.R. Brown’s debut crime thriller is less a book about drugs and more about what happens when the desire for money and respect lure innocent ... Read More »

March 12, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels