In which pages are turned, at a faster rate than usual. Character-soaked, but still fast-paced storytelling. Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves (2017) is set in a future in which the dominant culture has determined that the blood of indigenous peoples holds an inherent value for healing. Exploitation and genocide ensue. This
Boundaries and borders, between countries and between stages of life: Andrée A. Michaud's Boundary darts across the dotted lines, back and forth, sedately in one moment and chillingly the next. Because the story revolves around the murders of two young women in the small community of Bondrée, questions of
This week, we are invited to pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. "It can be a 'If you loved this book, read this!' or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real
Though set further north of the bluffs, David Chariandy's follow-up to his debut Soucouyant is every bit as family-soaked, its losses and sorrows cast against a remarkable and enduring landscape. In Brother, Michael introduces readers to the Rouge Valley, to his mother and to the memory of his brother
The thing with an explosion is that it comes out of nowhere. And that's exactly what happens in Alison Watt's debut novel. Even though I knew that the 1917 event was at the heart of this Halifax story, I was completely absorbed in Clare and Fred's ordinary workday at
