“‘Bear…I love you. Pull my head off,” (Engel 90). Lou works a quiet, easy life in the archives of the Historical Institute, but when her boss offers her the chance to catalogue the library of an eccentric nineteeth-century colonel in northern Ontario, she jumps at the chance. But when Lou gets there she is shocked to …
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. “Would it be like that with her? When she died, would her loved ones be told to move on?…She wondered this for weeks. She wondered if this was why people worshipped God, why she herself was attracted to that devotion. God the eternal, …
I received this book from Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review. “The world is unfair to women. That’s why women need other women to teach them how to survive,” (Choi). In 1924, Kim Na-Young lives a quiet life in the village of Daegeori where she cares for her sick mother and tends to her …
I received this book from Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review. “The Collective can be a powerful force. Perhaps together you’ll make the word flesh. Tap the Wound and bring it to vivid life. Making something beautiful is, after all, the best revenge,” (Awad). Samantha Heather Mackey has just published her debut novel. Living …
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. “The land would always return to its feral character; the trick is to place your bets on when and how. But the bust is inevitable. As sure as the sun fades with the silvering of the day,” (Welsh 84). As the Klondike Gold Rush …
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. Caitlin Galway’s A Song for Wildcats follows characters from postwar Australia, late 1960s France, the Troubles in Ireland, 1930s New York, and 1980s Nevada who are processing grief, trauma, love, and their place in the world after facing adversity. She’s a talent of a …
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. “When humans sing together, even if we start in disharmony, our voices find their way unconsciously into agreement,” (“Breathe,” Bush 117). It’s taken me a while to organize my thoughts around Skin. I found it very hard to be engaged or interested in many of …
“With henching, you know where you stand,” (Walschots 202). Anna is a hench, meaning she takes temp jobs for the world’s more dastardly (or starting-up) villains to make money. It isn’t honest work, but in this economy a person has to survive any way they can. But once she becomes permanently injured after a well-known superhero …
“Which is better?…The grief of death of the ambiguity of indefinite loss?” (Wallace 76). In the small town of Euphoria a suburban couple, Blue and Culver, have disappeared, but only their estranged friend Fir seems to care. Without any help from the police, Fir enlists the help of their friend Fain as they begin their search. …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. “Lily: They’re all dead now,” (Act 1, Prologue, 14). An adaption of Ann-Marie Macdonald’s novel of the same name, the play follows piano tuner James Piper and his thirteen-year-old wife Materia Mahmoud, their four daughters Kathleen, Frances, Mercedes, and Lily. Dark secrets are unearthed …
Sarah O'Connor 