Around the holiday season I like to dive into a romance novel. Partially because this is the month I like to ‘treat’ myself to lighter reads, but also because I aim to include one romance novel in my ‘books as gifts’ round-up each December for the CBC. Sunshine and Spice by Aurora Palit does not…
I vaguely recall seeing The Lost Tarot by Sarah Henstra on a summer reading list somewhere in my scrolling, so I figured it would be a light read that’s best done sooner rather than later. Henstra is also an award-winning Canadian author who I hadn’t read before, so her latest release coming out this past…
Six years ago, I read and reviewed The Break by Katherena Vermette. It was the first in a trilogy about a violent act, and although I didn’t read the second and middle book The Strangers, I’ve now read the last in the series, The Circle. I described that first book as a literary mystery which…
Having never read her first, bestselling book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, I was excited to pick up Alicia Elliott’s new book, a work of fiction titled And Then She Fell, because I felt like I was missing out on a very new and cool writer if I didn’t. I enjoyed this one,…
When a colleague of mine mentioned that she had raced through Ashley Audrain’s latest book The Whispers, I asked if I could borrow it to read myself. I rarely read books that aren’t my own, simply because I have a shelf bursting with books I already committed to reviewing from my publishing partners, but I…
A slim work of fiction, The Relatives by Camilla Gibb is an understated book that’s been hiding away on my bookshelf for two years. But I love Gibb’s writing, so even though it took me awhile to get to this one, I finally settled in to enjoy it this past week. The emotions are big,…
Whew. This book terrified me, and not in a spooky fun way. It terrified me because I have a daughter, and this is a coming-of-age novel about a teenager who is struggling her way through life as a female. Sharp Edges by Leah Mol is about a lot of things, but it’s mainly about growing…
Quickly becoming one of my ‘must read everything authors’, Samantha Irby has released a new book of essays just in time for the start of my summer reading. Quietly Hostile looks like her other books; a bright cover with a random animal on the front, and it reads exactly like her other books too: hilarious….
Bizarre. Creepy. Horrific. Sarcastic. All these words can be used to describe Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality by Lindsay Wong, a collection of short stories that will likely strike every reader differently. To me, these stories came across as a blend between satire and horror. I’m still struggling to decide how I really felt…
Big books come out in the Fall – it’s book awards season and it’s when all the serious award contenders are released, especially those that should sell well for holiday shopping season a few months later. In the case of Fayne by Ann-Marie MacDonald, this book is not only a big deal for Canadian publishing (she’s the…
I did not request this book, I did not pick it out of a publisher’s catalogue. Instead, it landed on my doorstep, and when I realized it was all about video games and the people who make them, I was…less than enthusiastic. Still, its focus fit the theme of a CBC segment I was recording…
Another example of my favourite genre; books about books, The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher tells the story of the infamous book store Shakespeare and Company. Is ‘books about books’ an actual genre? No, I made it up, but it’s a way to categorize my absolute favourite kind of book, and I know that lots…
