Crafting a Cold Case

 

Crafting a Cold Case / Barbara Emodi
Concord, CA: C&T, c2025.
256 p.

I read the latest volume of the Gasper's Cove series by Barbara Emodi at the very end of December, during a huge winter storm. Timely, as it is set mostly during a huge winter storm! It made it feel quite recognizable. 

This is such a fun series, and the characters grow with every new story. In this 6th installment, Valerie shows her inimitable amateur sleuthing skills again, when there's a murder, a snowstorm, and a number of strangers in town outside of tourist season. 

The story begins with the usually unflappable Catherine, former librarian and Valerie's cousin-in-law, calling her in panic mode. Valerie drops everything and heads right over, to discover that the crisis is two unwanted guests at Catherine's B&B who are driving her crazy. Valerie responds immediately. 

“I went over to the pantry and found a box of Morse’s Tea, the official consolation beverage of Nova Scotia since 1870. I picked up the kettle and filled it at the deep, stainless-steel, industrial-sized sink. While I waited for the water to boil, I found a tin of shortbread and put enough for four people onto a plate. Emotional breakdowns are no time to be skimpy with baked goods.”

This book is such a great balance of mystery and humour. I love this series for this reason, and I find that each book gets better. There are two extra guests, one a prepper who follows Catherine's partner Rollie around constantly, and one a peevish old professor there to talk to a local group about antiquities. The other stranger in town is a smooth talking podcaster, unfortunately brought to Gasper's Cover by Valerie's daughter -- nobody else really likes him, but her daughter seems enamoured. 

There is intrigue from the start, but then a storm blows in, one that their local weather station seemed to miss completely. And it's a bad one. It snows them all in, even as one of the locals in the antiquities group is found dead in a snowbank. Murder, and who was it? It's a real mystery this time with some plausible red herrings sprinkled around liberally. Lots of people to dislike and suspect, whether of murder, stealing a snowplow, or just being a jerk. 

I really liked this one. So many good characters, intriguing setup, funny commentary, and an unexpected conclusion. Even a big surprise for everyone (even herself) when one of Valerie's guesses proves correct. I'd read this again, just for the characters. And that snowstorm!

(first published on FollowingTheThread.ca)

Crafting an Alibi: a Gasper's Cove mystery

 

Crafting an Alibi / Barbara Emodi
Lafayette, CA: C&T, c2025
224 p.

It's the beginning of a new month, and I have lots of Christmas reading planned. But I still have a bunch of reviews to share from my recent mystery binge, so will have to catch up on a few of those before I switch over to holiday fare. 

Starting with one in a series that I've read all of so far -- this is Book 5 in the entertaining Gasper's Cove mystery series. We meet many of the same characters we've seen over the last few books, but see them from new angles. And there are some new characters added too, perhaps ones we will see again. 

As this story begins, Valerie is invited into a big secret held by a group of senior ladies, now resident at the Seaview Manor. She is asked to find some valuable fabric hidden decades ago, but before she can do it, the hiding place is burned to the ground. Unfortunately for Valerie, it was her family cottage and there was a renter in it. 

This set-up leads to some dramatic events -- insurance investigations, attempted murders, further fires -- all while Valerie is trying to puzzle out the clues (missing important steps as usual). She is also in the midst of helping to plan her cousin/best friend's wedding, dealing with her emotions over being an empty nester, and of course losing a family property. 

There is a lot going on here, but it's rooted in the same small town atmosphere as the previous books in the series. It has the hallmarks of a Gasper's Cove story - some Nova Scotia history, some cozy relationships which involve food and tea, and Valerie's crafting knowledge, which always plays a part. I really enjoyed the cabal of old ladies at Seaview Manor in this novel and hope to see their cleverness highlighted again.  

If you've enjoyed this series so far, this is a good addition, with some lovely scenes as well as some heart-pounding ones. Beware, you may be left craving butter tarts after this one!

(first published in slightly different form at FollowingTheThread)

Crafting with Slander: Gasper's Cove mystery #3

 

Crafting with Slander / Barbara Emodi
Lafayette, CA: C&T, c2025.
242 p.

I've missed posting in October (time just got away from me, again!) and so for the last week of the month I am planning to share some seasonal mysteries and thrillers. I'm starting with this light-hearted cozy, for a gentle start.

I'm going back a little in this series, as I had missed this one, the 3rd in the series, even though I recently reviewed #4! But it doesn't matter too much, as the stories do stand alone even if they are more entertaining when you read in order, since you can follow the characters. 

I really enjoyed this one. The set up was tricky and the solution unexpected. As the story begins, Gasper's Cove is being told that the larger town of Drummond across the causeway is going to amalgamate the community. The residents don't want this at all, but "Mighty Mike" Murphy, the mayor, thinks it's a great idea. (and the crafters start coming up with some wacky ideas to stop it, like blowing up the causeway that separates the two communities, or less violently, using their crafting skills to knit a giant barrier including a button up gate for emergencies.)

There is a municipal election, though, and Valerie's cousin Darlene decides to run. There are a couple of other local candidates, one who runs just to bring attention to the issues he is concerned about, and one more serious candidate, the son of a prominent local family hoping to use this as a stepping stone to bigger and better political roles. 

Valerie steps up as Darlene's campaign manager, and gets her crafters involved. They hand-stencil election signs, cross-stitch up some badges, and generally stump for Darlene. But then Valerie goes to complain to the mayor about some dirty tricks and finds him dead with one of Darlene's signs next to him. Concerned that Darlene is being framed, Valeried starts another round of investigations. 

This one was tricky and has some red herrings that were very convincing to me. There are also a few new characters added into the mix, and some moments where Valerie's nosiness gets her into some serious trouble. Thankfully, as always, Valerie prevails -- even if she starts by accusing a bunch of non-guilty characters! There was fascinating info about local Nova Scotia history, as always, and in this book it was focused on the famous painter Maud Lewis. Readers will always learn something even in these light and entertaining cozies. And as always, sewing and crafting talk is naturally woven into the story. Really enjoyable. 

(review first published at FollowingTheThread)

Crafting a Getaway: Gasper's Cove Mystery #4

 

Crafting a Getaway / Barbara Emodi
Concord, CA: C&T Publishing, c2024.
240 p.

I found another volume in the Gasper's Cove mystery series by sewing writer Barbara Emodi! I enjoy this series so I snatched this one up. It's another episode in the mystery-solving life of amateur sleuth Valerie Rankin, resident of Gasper's Cove, Nova Scotia. 

There have been some changes in this story; Valerie is now the manager of the family hardware business, where she also runs her crafting workshops and studio. Her cousin Rollie has moved on to managing a local inn with his girlfriend. 

The action starts off with a mistake by Valerie (as it often does). She is planning a crafting retreat but realizes that she entered the dates wrong on her event listing -- she got them backwards, so instead of August 7 like she is planning for, the retreat has been advertised for July 8. Which is now. She only has a day or two to pull together her instructors and try to run it immediately, since the retreat guests are already in town. 

So she runs around, finding herself in just the right place every time to add some clues to the upcoming mystery. Her final stop, at the Inn (where the retreat is scheduled for August, and has no room now since there is a corporate event going on) is where she comes across the dead body of the marketing specialist from the corporate event. 

Valerie continues rushing around into multiple blind alleys -- it's her modus operandi in each book. But in this one, the plotting is a little more intricate and there are both more characters and more suspects. There are also tons of references scattered in about Nova Scotia ecology and history, which I always find so fascinating and a very enjoyable part of this series. Valerie also talks about craft, of course; she's taken on teaching the quilting class, which is not her specialty, so we hear all about that too. 

I really enjoyed this one. The story was more complex than the first books in the series - Emodi's writing style is growing and the setting is more developed after four books, too. The solution to this mystery was a bit out there, but it was a fun journey. 

(this review first appeared at FollowingTheThread)

A Sewing Novella: Sew Over It!

 

Sew Over It / Barbara Emodi
c2023
68 p.

I read this quick e-short this week when I discovered it on Hoopla thanks to my library. It's part of the Gasper's Cove mysteries by Barbara Emodi, also a writer of sewing books and a sewing blog. Her cozies are pretty fun, especially for other sewists, so I quickly checked this one out. 

This is kind of a prequel to the whole series, a short mystery (involving the murder of a sewing machine rep) that still satisfies, while it introduces us to Valerie Rankin and her world. In this book you meet all the characters who will make up the series, and you get a feel for the town and Valerie's position as a recent returnee. 

It's a little clunky in parts -- for example, Valerie's dog's name changes suddenly halfway in -- but it's a fun intro to the series. I found that in this story, the sewing puns and sewing content are in peak form, with comments that made me laugh out loud. I really enjoyed this, after having read the first two in the series. I'm falling behind, with book 6 coming out in October. I'll have to find book 3 and get busy!

(first reviewed at FollowingTheThread)

Crafting for Murder: a crafty cozy for November nights

  

Crafting for Murder / Barbara Emodi
Concord, CA: C&T Publishing, c2023.
224 p.

This is the first volume in a projected series of cozy crafter mysteries, by well-known Canadian sewist Barbara Emodi. I just had to read it, having really liked her two sewing books as well as her long-running blog. 

It's a fun and light cozy mystery, with many of the expected elements of such -- a middle-aged female protagonist, a dog and cat, a job that leaves lots of room for investigations, and a whole group of side characters that spice up the story. 

Valerie Rankin has moved back to tiny Gasper's Cove, Nova Scotia, now that her three children are on their own and she's an empty nester. She's returned to where she grew up, and where she has many cousins of all sorts, and a family business -- a general store -- run by one of them. She helps out there, and also gives sewing lessons in the back room. But her big plan is to open a Crafter's Co-op in the upper room of the store, to promote local craft and make Gasper's Cove into more of a tourist location. 

This is where she runs into trouble. They find out that the building's upper floor needs quite a lot of fixing up before they can let people into it, pushing back her plans. She has to consult an engineer, who becomes part of the story. And, she was just interviewed about the Co-op on local radio, but her spot is a little overshadowed by the murder of the radio host the next day. 

This book is setting up a series, so there's a lot of scene setting and introduction of characters going on. The action can be a little slow because of it, and because Valerie always seems to get the wrong end of the stick on everything; she does tend to leap to conclusions. But it's still an interesting story, and very true to small town politics (even if two murders back to back in such a small place is a bit unusual). I enjoyed some of the side issues like her relationship with her best friend & cousin Darlene, and the discussion of crafting and what it means to people. 

The mystery part of it was puzzling, with lots of suspects and drama. The conclusion was unexpected but made sense within the story, especially as the reader looks back and sees all the subtle clues that were laid down (many of which I missed on first read!) I think this is a great light read and will definitely be checking out book 2 when it's published on Christmas Day this year!

(this review first appeared at FollowingTheThread) 

Promises to Keep

Promises to Keep / Genevieve Graham
Toronto: Simon & Schuster, c2017.
336 p.

The expulsion of the Acadians is perhaps best known through Longfellow's Evangeline. But Genevieve Graham takes on this historical event in a much more readable historical romance (even if Evangeline and Gabriel do crop up in passing...)

It's 1755, and Amélie Belliveau is living with her family on an idyllic Acadian homestead. Her large family is content and well-fed, and a respected part of their community. But into that settled life comes the British army. And they start exiling Acadians, so as to take their fertile lands and comfortable settlements.

All French speaking Acadians are considered enemy French, and are packed into the holds of British ships as prisoners, with no efforts made to keep families together. These ships all head off to various ports where they intend to drop all these unwilling refugees, some of whom (as told in Evangeline) never saw one another again.

But Amélie has a secret benefactor, a Scottish soldier in the English army. He tries, to the best of his ability, to at least make sure that her family is together on the ships. And he plays a bigger role once they are at sea.

The journey of Amélie's family is circuitous and dangerous; she loses many members of her family to illness as the months progress. But she also finds people who are kind and who guide her back to her brothers and Mi'kmaq friends who had been French resisters in Acadia, and had shifted west to what is now Quebec. And there she finds a home again.

The book moves between viewpoints -- Amélie, Connor the Scottish soldier, Me'tekw of the Mi'kmaq, and others. The first half, focused on Acadia and the daily life of the people who will soon lose it, is a little bit slower moving, but the action really picks up in the second half as their forced travels begin. The romance is also a key part of the story, as it shapes the events around Amélie's experience of the expulsion. 

This was an easy reading historical drama that should appeal to those who enjoy tales of the past -- especially those that make Canadian history exciting and romantic. The author has another book inspired by Canadian history, Tides of Honour, set at the time of the Halifax Explosion, so if you like sweeping romantic historicals try either one. 

Stars and Laments: Mysteries of East Coast Canada

Fire in the Stars / Barbara Fradkin
Toronto: Dundurn, c2016.
324 p.


Amanda Doucette, recently returned from Nigeria where she experienced trauma as an aid worker caught up in violence, is supposed to meeting up with a friend and fellow survivor in Newfoundland. A camping trip together will be restful, restorative, he says.

But when she gets to Newfoundland, he is not there to meet her. Amanda hops on her motorbike, hooks up her dog trailer, and heads off for his place -- only to find his wife Sheri alone there, suspicious and angry. Phil has already left for a camping trip, taking their son Tyler with him.

Feeling a bit worried herself (and unwelcome at his home) she heads off in the general direction that they were planning on going, hoping to track him down. She partners up with Chris Tymko, an RCMP officer from out west now stationed in Newfoundland, who believes her when she says something is wrong. Together they follow up on rumours, sightings, and eventually murders. There is a social conscience in this book too; one of the threads has to do with illegal foreign workers on a fishing trawler who are trying to escape their servitude, while another is Amanda and Phil's PTSD and how it's affecting their lives. 

It's a straightforward mystery, with a strong setting, and a strong character setting up a new series. There were a couple of things that I didn't like personally; Amanda's dog Kaylee travels with her in a motorbike dog trailer & she's a big part of the story. Unfortunately I'm not much for pets and mystery stories together like this. One more little quibble for me; Chris Tymko is a Western Canadian of Ukrainian descent, and at one point relates that his grandparents came from "the Ukraine". A Ukrainian would not say "the" in this case. It's actually quite a contentious issue -- the country is Ukraine, not "the" region of anywhere else.

But apart from my very individual taste, this is a rapidly moving and easily read mystery that keeps you guessing and evokes a definite sense of place.

Lament for Bonnie / Anne Emery
Toronto: ECW Press, c2016
332 p.

Set in Cape Breton, this is a book full of music, and family, and the way the past can rise up and disrupt the present.

Twelve year old Bonnie MacDonald -- the youngest member of her family's famous Clan Donnie highland band, and a step-dancer -- has disappeared after a family party. Nobody has seen a thing, and as the days go on, they all begin to suspect the worst.

Bonnie's disappearance highlights the fractures in this family, between spouses, cousins, generations. As RCMP officer Pierre Maguire (from Montreal, which he left hoping for kinder, gentler work) investigates, the threads of the mystery tangle so tightly the reader is suspecting everyone at once.

Except for the other children, of course. And Emery has created some great characters here; the children are children -- realistic, thoughtful, trying to interpret what they are seeing and hearing. Bonnie's cousin Normie, visiting for the summer, has visions she's not sure what to do with, but connects deeply with her great-grandmother who is also gifted with the sight.

While the conclusion gets a bit over the top and melodramatic for my sensibility, it was at least not horrific. This family is a complicated and interesting one, and the Cape Breton setting with all of its Highland ancestry shines brightly.

If you're looking to take a trip to the East Coast in the company of some mysterious circumstances and strong female leads, either one of these may provide you with the means to do so.

Raising Orion

Raising Orion / Lesley Choyce
Saskatoon, SK: Thistledown Press, c2010.
300 p.

I've read quite a few of Choyce's books and generally enjoy his narrative approach and especially his characters. Set mostly in Halifax, this particular book drew my attention, seeing as how it featured a woman running a used bookshop that becomes a neighbourhood gathering place for people as diverse as a retired high school principal, a former history professor going through mid-life crisis, and heavy rock band made up of vegetarian teenage boys. Plus there is a thread of the story tying in the Titanic disaster. It ranges from Baffin Island to Ottawa to Halifax.

It was a good read -- a good choice to begin 24 hours of reading in the weekend's Readathon. I didn't love this book as much as some of his others (ie: The Republic of Nothing). But I found the characters once again the heart of the book.

Molly owns the bookstore, and is a naif -- a woman who grew up isolated on an island where her parents were lighthousekeepers. She doesn't seem to have grown up into adulthood in the way that most people have; she is a bit of a free spirit, a bit odd in some ways. Into her life comes Eric, the professor from Ottawa who has nearly died on a trip to Baffin Island and decided to change his life by flitting off to live in Halifax. He decides this on the spur of the moment and just locks his front door in Ottawa and flies to Halifax carrying only a plastic bag full of books. The bookshop also attracts a wealthy, elderly British woman who is tracking down the woman who pulled her dead son from the sea decades ago -- which of course turns out to be Molly. While she is in Halifax this woman also becomes absorbed in researching the Titanic disaster, which of course Halifax played a large role in, being the recipient of many of the dead.

All of these characters come together once Molly is in trouble with the law. This, I felt, was a weak element. Molly develops a strong relationship with a 14 yr old boy undergoing cancer treatment. He is the nephew of a friend of hers, and she begins to visit him where of course they develop an uncanny, strong relationship and he sees Molly as the 14 yr old that she once was. Also, it begins to get a bit fantastical as Molly can travel with him in his dreams and take him to the island she grew up on; this is in addition to the fact that she can save lives remotely -- people and animal -- through the power of her mind and intention. She doesn't succeed in saving this young boy, but makes his last weeks much more bearable. The key moment, the one that sends her to jail briefly, is when she is found in his hospital bed, naked. She isn't sure how that happened, and neither is the reader. Not to mention, this reader feels no sympathy or compassion for this event; it is simply weird and yes, if I was his mother I would have also been completely creeped out and had her removed by police. Nevertheless, despite this extremely bizarre occurence, Molly is sidelined briefly and then everything goes back to normal for everyone. I felt that the whole storyline involving Todd was weak and the least interesting of any, despite it taking up much of the book.

So, my main difficulty with this was Molly herself. I loved the description of her childhood, and her strange powers seem to fit in that wild and lonely setting. Once she's a bookstore owner and a grown woman with a weird relationship with a young boy they just seem delusional. I enjoyed the side characters and their lives, which were not developed nearly enough for my liking. Molly's childhood and the description of the wild nature of her island was wonderful -- it was all that was needed to make Molly into a fascinating character; the modern day part of the story could have been excised with no loss, in my mind. I also really appreciated the humour in the random appearances of Dumpster Teeth, the heavy rock band that is amusingly made up of three teenage boys who are vegetarians and social activists fond of sharing hummus.

So, lots to enjoy in this book, but ultimately not one of his best.

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For this year's Canadian Book Challenge I've chosen as my theme "Small-Press-Palooza" Thus, for each book I'm including a link to the small press who has published it. Take a look -- there are wonderful small presses all over Canada!

More about Thistledown Press

Bill Gaston's Order of Good Cheer

The Order of Good Cheer / Bill Gaston
Toronto: Anansi, c2008.
388 p.

Another book I picked up as part of my Canadian Book Challenge... deciding that I should read some male authors new to me wasn't as difficult as the first part of my challenge, reading female authors new to me. That is simply because I read far more women than men, so there is a huge pool to choose from here. Still, one of the reasons I read more women is they have a more immediate appeal so it's been a game of reading first chapters of many books to find one that keeps my interest.

Bill Gaston's book caught my interest immediately, and I ended up really enjoying this read. It was partly the gorgeous cover and partly the historical content that convinced me to pick it up, but the writing was appealing from the start. It's set partially in modern-day Prince Rupert, a small town in Northern B.C., and partially in Nova Scotia in 1606/1607. In this era, Champlain and his compatriots were trying to create a settlement in the new world for France. The group is made up of nobles and a mishmash of working men -- soldiers, carpenters, cook, surgeon, priest and so on. Often with two timelines like this, I have problems flipping from one era to another. But, I read this book over a couple of weeks so each time the era changed, I put it down until my next chance to read a bit. I found this worked very well.

Champlain is the main character, sort of, in his part of the book. Really there are a few men amongst the group who take a central role. The carpenter Lucien begins a clandestine relationship with a Mi'qmah girl (it is strictly forbidden to fraternize with the local savages); the priest struggles with the point of his being there at all; Champlain himself tries to forestall the reappearance of scurvy which carried off many of the men who had been there the previous winter before reinforcements came from France. And to counteract the boredom and bad feelings and fear of disease, he decides that the best route is to party. He creates the Order of Good Cheer (this is based in historical fact) and each night a different person is responsible for creating entertainment. This gets them through the dark days despite difficulty and despair.

Meanwhile, in present day B.C., Andy is having a bit of a midlife crisis. Never married, he has remained in his hometown and works at the local mill, a job that both pays well and allows him hours of reading time. He's known as the "clever" person in town, and has to hold himself back from contributing too much information at the wrong time, in order to remain well liked and not mocked. He is in a bit of a lather because his high school girlfriend Laura, who had left to go to Toronto after graduation eighteen years before and broken up with him, is returning home to look after her mother. What will she think of him? How can he ease the reunion? At the same time, his best friend Drew is going through hard times; his marriage is breaking up, his son doesn't really speak to him, and his drinking habit is becoming more than just a casual habit. Andy is currently reading Champlain's memoirs, and is inspired to cheer up everyone and create a gathering which encompasses all the characters we've met throughout his story. It incorporates his mother and her friends, Laura (of course), Drew and his soon-to-be exwife and his son, a Chinese woman who is in town to inspect the fish plant, and a few native friends who bring the food. It's a crazy party that goes in all directions, but seems to tie up loose ends and bring a sense of closure to Andy's story.

The writing was mesmerizing; especially in Champlain's sections the vast natural landscape is evoked strongly. The sense that they are a tiny settlement isolated in a huge unknowable space is very present, as is the comparison of their lives with those of the native groups who come and go around them. But in Andy's part of the story, the natural world is also vast and isolates his community to some degree as well. I thought there were many parallels between these two men, and while Gaston does not belabour the point or draw obvious comparisons, the two stories complement one another. While it is a bit long, I did enjoy the writing itself and the arc of each story.

I appreciated the struggle of these two men to make sense of their lives and surroundings, their determination to make the best of things and do something to improve morale in their own circles. Each person in the story had their own particular life, their own particular struggles, but coming together in community made a difference to them. And I think that that idea is still a good one, and a useful one, as we all face our own difficulties. This book was altogether an unexpected find and a serendipitous one. I thought it was a great read.

The Wind Seller

The Wind Seller / Rachael Preston
Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, c2006.
295 p.


Set in the small town of Kenomee, Nova Scotia, in 1924, this is a story of a community shaken up by the sudden appearance of a large ship washed up at their wharf. It is a strange ship, with a small crew which includes a long-legged, long-haired beautiful woman who dresses like a man, named Esmeralda. Not only that, there is no cargo. The inhabitants gather at the shore to take a look at this unusual sight, and the ship's captain asks a local mechanic on board to take a look at their engine, which has stopped working -- their reason for ending up at this wharf. The suspicious circumstances lead the locals to believe that this must be a ship of pirates, or of rum-runners, and they are correct.

This event is the big moment that the story revolves around, but it is more deeply the story of the people of Kenomee. Two characters are our main focus: Hetty Douglas, a nurse who was in Halifax during the Great Explosion, and was dismissed from nursing afterward. She needs an escape from the stress and shock she suffered, and so is married off to a distant cousin, a cold and abrupt man who nevertheless runs a successful factory and wants a wife. She is beginning to question her existence as she wakes from the emotional numbness she's felt since the Explosion. The second character is Noble Matheson, local boy who has his own problems. He's lost his beloved brother in the War, and has also just realized that he is likely the real father of the pompous local doctor's son.

Noble is trying to write a book - he's sent away for the Elinor Glyn System of Writing, hoping it will show him how to create a story. The system tells him to write about his own life; he thinks that there will be nothing to set down, but that very day, the rum runners arrive at the shore. It is the ship that eventually links Noble and Hetty as well. Hetty, former nurse, is called aboard to tend to a young crew member who is feverish. She realizes the only option to his gangrene is to amputate his leg, which she does; this action causes a lot of friction between she and her husband as well as a run-in with the old-fashioned local doctor who believes women (and specifically nurses) should not meddle in matters that don't concern them. A mutual dislike of the doctor leads to a kind of friendship between Hetty and Noble.

I found this book interesting, with a great Atlantic Canadian setting, and lots of historical detail about events such as the Great Explosion or the existence of rum-runners. There was a wide-ranging cast of characters, with a variety of social issues and concerns brought up, adding depth to the story. However, I didn't really like the ending, feeling a little bit like there was no real resolution.

At the end of the book, Esmeralda is arrested and taken to Halifax. Hetty feels compelled to go see her charged in court, so hitches a ride with Noble, who is on shady business of his own. Hetty stays with her aunt in Halifax, where her husband eventually locates her. He arrives and suddenly Hetty has resolved all her angst and is ready to head home with him again. She suddenly likes Peter; why? There didn't seem to be any reason why Peter would have changed, his character as built up didn't seem very changeable. He was a cold, stifling kind of husband, and I can't see Hetty's free spirit bending to that easily.

As for Noble, he never does "claim" his son, but he does find out that nearly everyone else knows the truth anyhow. He decides that what he will write will be a story for his son, about himself and his brother, so the boy will know the facts some day. Which is nice but rather tame considering his drunken and regretful revels earlier as he tried to deal with the facts.

In any case, this was enjoyable for its historical setting and the lively action and characterizations. There were probably many nurses and doctors suffering from emotional trauma after the Great Explosion, and Hetty is a complex portrait of such an individual. The book is fast paced, suited to its subject, and is an entertaining read.







Rachael Preston is a Hamilton-based writer. Her debut novel, Tent of Blue, was published in the fall of 2002 by Goose Lane Editions. A native of Yorkshire, England, Rachael has a Master’s degree in English Literature from Queen’s University and also studied at Emily Carr College in Vancouver. Rachael has worked freelance as an editor and copywriter. Currently Rachael teaches creative writing courses both in class and online for Mohawk and Sheridan Colleges.

Sounding Line

Sounding Line / Anne DeGrace
Toronto: McArthur & Co, c2009.
360 p.

I received this book from the publisher, having read DeGrace's previous two novels (Wind Tails and Treading Water) and being curious about what she would do in her latest. I was pleased to discover that I liked this novel the best of all of them so far.

DeGrace's first book was a set of linked short stories, some of which had been published previously. Her second ties the stories of disparate characters together as they pass through a café in the mountains. Both of these take place out West, in Alberta and British Columbia. This new novel has a few differences, the most obvious of which is that it is set in Nova Scotia. While DeGrace still uses the technique of following the fortunes of a varied cast of characters, this book is much more seamlessly interconnected and really works as a novel.

It takes as its premise the occasion of a UFO crashing into the bay next to Perry's Harbour, Nova Scotia, in October 1967. (this is based on the true story of Shag Harbour, sometimes called 'Canada's Roswell'). The book focuses on the community of Perry's Harbour, closest to the crash site. It is a small town, with families who have been there for generations. One of these is the Snow family: Wilf, Merle and Pocket, a gangly adolescent whose nickname is now an ironic one. Merle is dying of cancer, and the effect this has on father, son, brother-in-law Scratch, and unexpected house guest Wanda is the focus of the tale. Pocket is one of the few people who actually witnessed the strange lights disappear into the ocean. His movements shape the book, as he interacts with town bully Cuff Dodds, with local storekeeper Shirley Crosbey, with his own parents and uncle, and with the strangers who come to town in the wake of the UFO sighting. He is a complex, well drawn character who engages the reader's sympathy.

I felt like I knew this community by the end of the story, and was fascinated with them. I also enjoyed the fact that while the UFO sighting certainly gave structure to the book, the real arena of exploration within the storytelling was the lives and relationships of the inhabitants of Perry's Harbour, old timers and newcomers alike. The 'facts' of the UFO sighting are never resolved -- are we to believe one character's view that it really was aliens whom she made psychic contact with, or the view of some others that it was probably 'something Russian'? It is never clearly indicated, and the evidence is inconclusive -- the narrative could support either view, depending which you personally favour. I found it very interesting how she kept each possibility alive!

It was a deceptively light read, easy to get through but with many characters who have stayed in my mind for days now. There is plenty of room for after-book discussions as well! I enjoy DeGrace's writing style, and this book exhibits her writerly skill as well as her obvious affection for her characters. I'll close with a couple of quotes I enjoyed from different parts of the book -- there are small sections interspersed with the main text which are told in second person, and while they are different from the rest of the book I liked them. So here are bits of both kinds of writing.

Just after Pocket's mother dies, and he loses track of the possibly alien artifact he found on the beach:

He could see his life, and the lives of everyone he knew spanning out in intersecting lines, the curves of change, the sharp angles of the unexpected, the steady climbs and the sudden dips. How the shift of one affects the direction of another, alters its course, which alters another, and another. It all seemed impossibly complicated.

In the afternoon sky a daytime moon floated, pale, as if to say that even such things as day and night could not be trusted to stay in their places. You thought you understood something, could just reach out and hold it, and then it could slip from your grasp, just like that.

In one of the interspersed sections, called Low:

The sea claims what it will; flotsam of all description finds land on a full moon tide, embraces rock or sandy shore, holds on for a breathy respite as the water recedes, until claimed again when the waves return. Things lost sometime drift to the bottom and lie waiting, joined as time passes by new treasure, that left glove, or the penny tossed, Neptune's magpie collection...

How deep is deep? How far the bottom? If you had a sounding line, how many fathoms might you count before the lead weight finds bottom, and you know the truth of depth?

Heaving in Nova Scotia

Heave / Christy Ann Conlin

Toronto: Anchor, c2002.

336 p.

Starting right at the first page, as Serrie Sullivan flees the church in her wedding gown and runs home to hide out in one of her father's vintage outhouses, you know this book is going to be unpredictable.

Serrie (Seraphina) leads us to London, where she falls in with a bad crowd at the youth hostel and gets to know more about the drug scene and night life than anything else about England. We follow her back to Nova Scotia and learn what led her to drop her university classes and head out for England in the first place. We see her best friends, Dearie and Elizabeth, with all their history together making for some quirky scenes. We meet the Sullivan family and extended clan; her rather ineffectual father who is best known for collecting obsolete outhouses, her mother and Aunt Galronia and Grammie, her older brother Percy. Conlin draws a strong portrait of a family always on the edge of need, both financial and emotional. Serrie is a raging alcoholic, spending much of the first part of the book heaving; she finally admits it when her friends find her blacked out at a local dive in the company of strippers and drug users. All this energetic rambling story then comes to a point where it pauses in the middle: Serrie enters a treatment centre.

This section of the book was tough for me, I had to push myself to keep reading to find out why the pace of the story suddenly stalled. The treatment centre and Serrie's daily routine are described in excruciating detail, and I couldn't help but think of the movie 28 Days. After Serrie leaves the centre and tries to make something of herself, the story gets back on track. She continues to tell her story in flashback and recollection, and for a while I was quite impressed that her problems were not the stereotypical ones I've come to expect from this sort of coming-of-age novel. But then It Happened. The one moment that really screwed her up, and all I could do was sigh. I know, It would have been awful. Terrible, really. But it was the one element of the book that was, sadly, predictable.

Nevertheless, this story gives us a feel for Nova Scotian life. The smell of the air, the quality of light, snow and a family Christmas, the salt tang on a wharf, local neighbourhoods and student living, it is all easily comprehended by the details Conlin includes, whether visual, tactile, or olfactory. There are wonderful relationships as well as understandably prickly family ones. The writing is fresh and powerful, full of energy, developing characters who are individuals, not just symbols. The structure of the book, while lagging a bit for me in the central section, is built so that we see the beginning in a different light when we've come to the end. What looks like disaster, Serrie fleeing her own wedding and running down the highway with red bra on display, comes to symbolize perhaps, instead, a final and successful attempt to claim her own power. It's an interesting read, and one that was very different from many of the more depressing Maritime stories I am familiar with. There is a youthfulness both in the energy of the writing and in the sense of hope that threads its way through Seraphina's struggles.

Republic of Nothing

The Republic of Nothing / Lesley Choyce

Fredericton, NB : Goose Lane, 2007, c1994.

A Nova Scotia book for the Canadian Book Challenge, I first read this back in university when I was fixated on reading novels about or set in the 60's. I greatly enjoyed it then, and this reprint, signed by Choyce, is nicely repackaged and even came with a membership card to the Republic! I've seen it promoted as a YA novel, probably because the main character is primarily telling us his coming-of-age story, but I would classify it as an adult novel suitable for recommending to the right teenager.

It tells the story of Whalebone Island and its small, unique population. Whalebone is a biggish island separated only by a small bridge from the mainland of Nova Scotia. The story begins with the birth of Ian McQuade, our narrator. When Ian is born, his father decides they need to celebrate by declaring independence, so sends a letter proclaiming such to the government of Canada and to the UN, naming themselves The Republic of Nothing. As Ian says, his father Everett McQuade "declared the independence of Whalebone Island on March 21, 1951, the day I was born. It was a heady political time even on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. New, pint-size nations were emerging all over forgotten corners of the globe and my old man decided that the flowering of independence should not pass us by.”

However, as the story continues, Everett finds himself drawn into provincial politics, and Ian watches him change from an anarchist to a politician in serious contention for Premier. As a politician Everett lives in Halifax while his family stays behind on the island. Ian spends his days observing his little sister Casey, his new age-y mother and her intense friendship with a recent addition to the island, their other neighbours, and especially Gwen Phillips, who has been the love of his life ever since she and her family fled the US and found refuge on Whalebone when Ian was 5. He also keeps his eye on his so-called friend, Burnet, who is a mean, ill-tempered brute but who is nevertheless extremely popular in their high school. The dangerous and sexy Burnet ends up with Gwen, getting her pregnant before leaving to enlist in the US. The novel tackles many historical issues, ie: the anti-Vietnam War movement in the US, draft dodgers in Canada, sex and the availability of legal abortion, and even environmental degredation. It also covers much emotional landscape: family loyalty, friendship, integrity, tolerance, and True Love. It deals with rebellion, and the individual need to find a moral path through life. It's a book jam-packed with discussion points for classrooms or for bookclubs, but more importantly, it is a great read. The McQuade family and the inhabitants of the eccentric Whalebone Island are quirky, but not overly so, and the story is so focused on character that all the world events Ian stumbles into do not overwhelm. He comes across as a thoughtful, mild young man with a mystical mother and a firecracker of a father, who is enough of an observer to give us a mostly impartial view of everyone he meets. My only reservation about Ian is that he seems to let things happen to him, for the most part. I would have liked to see him act with more agency near the end of the book.

However, this was an enjoyable reread from an astonishingly prolific author and musician. I was delighted to receive this reissue compliments of Goose Lane and kindly inscribed by Lesley Choyce, who was gracious despite my highly incoherent comment of "I love this book!"