I’ve read a few Catherine McKenzie novels so far; Please Join Us is her 13th book. She’s known for writing thrillers, none of them gory or violent, but definitely page-turners. I read this latest in approximately 24 hours – I was up at the cottage on vacation, it had a great premise with a protagonist…
I’m not sure what it says about me when I proclaim cozy mysteries as one of my favourite genres to read. Apparently I love murder, but only when it happens to the bad guys. And I love it even more when a kind, unlikely community member is the one who investigates and solves these murders….
After seeing Some Hellish by Nicholas Herring win the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize late last year, I made the mental note to dig it out of my (rapidly expanding) bookshelves and give it a try. The fact that it didn’t have a clear plot scared me away from it until now, but I…
These past few weeks I’ve been checking my news feed every few hours, hoping for a break in the case of missing author Dawn Dumont and her son, and I’m happy to report she has been found safe with her son, in the U.S. There will be some difficult times ahead for them, as it…
I’m in the midst of preparing my ‘hot summer fiction’ segment for CBC Calgary, and I knew as soon as I read the first review of Every Summer After by Carley Fortune that I’d have to include this novel in my annual round-up. Canadians are buzzing about this one as it’s a first-time author (but…
What’s the difference between a good and bad person? What makes a person selfish? Can regularly volunteering at a food bank cancel out the sins of cheating on a partner? Even So by Lauren B. Davis asks all these questions, and although not all of them are answered readers are given a glimpse into the…
Poetry isn’t something I read often; every once in awhile I’ll pick it up, but I really don’t look forward to it, and there are way too many novels on my shelf to ignore. But you may find it surprising to hear that my second favourite author (David Sedaris is my first) is the Canadian…
I couldn’t help myself, I HAD to read this season’s buzziest book, The Push by Ashley Audrain. You may recall I reviewed a book that dealt with some dark subject matter a few weeks ago, and I was warned that The Push was a slightly lighter version of Daniil & Vanya, so I prepared myself…
Clifford by Harold R. Johnson has sat on my bookshelf for far too long. It wasn’t until I saw Johnson speak at Wordfest this past fall that I realized what I was missing out on, so I finally picked it up and gave it a go. At only 260 pages of very large font, I…
