Quill and Quire

BOOK REVIEWS

Warlight

By Michael Ondaatje

The dimmed lights that guided emergency vehicles during London’s wartime blackouts were known as warlight; this titular image sets the melancholy mood for Michael Ondaatje’s haunting new novel, which takes place in the years following ... Read More »

May 28, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Still Water

By Amy Stuart

Amy Stuart’s 2016 bestseller, Still Mine, which was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, began with a complicated premise. A woman arrives in town asking questions about another woman who has ... Read More »

May 24, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Crimson

By Arthur Slade

Crimson opens with 11-year-old Fen in the village square awaiting punishment from Queen Servilia, the magical ruler of Illium. For filching a tiny glass butterfly (a gift for her little sister), Fen has been sentenced ... Read More »

May 24, 2018 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Plague

By Kevin Chong

A fatal epidemic reminiscent of the bubonic plague forces a bustling metropolis into quarantine. Citizens oscillate between panic and indifference, cautiousness and carelessness, filling their indefinite hiatus from real life with distracting trips to the ... Read More »

May 17, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Clara Voyant

By Rachelle Delaney

Two new books explore the perks and problems that come with a stronger-than-average intuition. One protagonist “sees” his long-dead great-grandfather spying on Nazis, while the other unwittingly uses her “gift” to write horoscopes that come ... Read More »

May 17, 2018 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ Red Sky at Night

By Elly MacKay

A curated collection of old-timey weather sayings is artfully brought to life in this exquisite informational picture book. Traditional aphorisms – including “Ring around the moon, rain will come soon” and “When ladybugs swarm, expect ... Read More »

May 14, 2018 | Filed under: Picture Books