I’ve had this book on my shelf for awhile now, it was a gift from someone who knew I loved the show. I was saving it for a ‘special occasion’, meaning, when I knew I would need my spirits lifted, and reading something comforting like this would instantly make me feel better. So, I packed…
Ah yes, the good ol’ unreliable female narrator. You can’t wade into a thriller section of a bookstore these days without finding at least 50% of the books include this oft-used device. This time, our protagonist Jane Norton isn’t reliable because she might be crazy (although that’s hinted at more than once), but she’s an…
God this was a funny book. The Figgs by Ali Bryan is absolutely hilarious, and I knew it would be, based on how much I enjoyed her first novel Roost, which also mines the hilarity of family, child-rearing, and the domestic sphere in general. The Figgs centers on a family who finds themselves in increasing turmoil….
Liminal by Jordan Tannahill is a book that pushes boundaries. It doesn’t really have a plot, so it’s pushing the boundaries of what we would typically think of as a novel (although many people see this as more of a memoir, it’s a work of fiction, so we must assume that there are embellishments at…
It’s strange timing that I read this book while pregnant, as The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman describes not one, not two, but three (!) different childbirth experiences. I raced through this book, and everytime I reached one of these scenes, I could feel my body tensing in anticipation (and let’s be honest,…
This book could have easily become a cliche; it centers on the extramarital affair that Maggie has with her penpal-turned-friend-turned-lover James. But there are a few things that keep Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro from spiralling into an overdone narrative. Firstly, Maggie is quite religious, which of course raises a few eyebrows right off the…
It feels like I’ve been reading a lot of ‘dark’ books lately, non-fiction mostly, so I searched for a ‘guilty pleasure’ read to lift the guilt I had been weighed under by reading such devastating memoirs. Strange to some, I chose a thriller, a pretty violent one at that to entertain me after my spate…
Whenever I personally know the author of a book I’m reviewing, I always like to state that outright. Rona Altrows and I are regular acquaintances in the Calgary literary scene, it’s a small industry here in cowtown so we inevitably run into each other at various events. And as I mentioned before, to keep my…
Long-time readers of this blog will already know how much I love the Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley. Perfect examples of the cozy mystery, these books depict the precocious 12 year old Flavia who solves mysteries that seem to fall in her lap. Much like my other murder mystery hero Jessica Fletcher, death…
It’s been awhile since I’ve really LOVED a short story collection, but I can finally say that The Dead Husband Project by Sarah Meehan Sirk is definitely one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Each piece in this collection is strong and emotionally affecting, but there are a few that really stood…
I’m really torn between my conflicting thoughts on this book. Into the Sun by Deni Ellis Bechard is extremely ambitious, it goes into many in-depth descriptions of various people’s lives, starting from their childhood and ending with their deaths, all within a somewhat convoluted plot that attempts to explain their connections with each other. But,…
My Canadian readers will probably be familiar with this latest can-lit thriller: Hysteria by Elisabeth de Mariaffi. It’s just come out, and it’s getting a hysterical amount of press (obviously I had to use that adjective somewhere in this review, but I promise I won’t do it again). Is this book a page-turner? Yes. Is…
