Alberta author Barb Howard has a novel (Whiplock), a novella (Notes for Monday), and a young adult novel (The Dewpoint Show) under her belt, to say nothing of the more than two dozen short stories that have appeared in journals and anthologies. Ten of these, along with six new stories, have been collected in her latest literary offering.

Howard’s stories are an odd juxtaposition of the quirky and the mundane. Whether it’s the new couple in “Last Seen at Teeny Town” on a trip to meet their respective families for the first time, or the pair of protagonists in “Still Making Time,” who reminisce about a summer fling two decades earlier, Howard captures pivotal moments in her characters’ lives. In some first-person stories, the reader is invited to experience events from perspectives that are not always comfortable.

Howard’s writing is characterized by wry humour, and it would be easy enough to summarize her her book as a solid collection of witty observations, but that would do her an injustice. While Howard’s stories and characters are indeed slightly offbeat, and as Canadian as Tim Hortons (a locale that features in several stories), a level of starkness is also present.  

Howard’s vignettes and snapshots of individual lives are familiar, yet also somehow unsettling in their familiarity. Her stories hit home in unexpected ways, sometimes with a sharp twist, sometimes subtly sliding under the skin.