“Many times there are no reasons that will ever make sense,” (Conlin, “Occlusion,” 145). Watermark is an absolutely astounding short story collection. Conlin writes characters that are so intriguing, who you both root for an try to understand, whose stories you desperately want to know. I love how some of the characters pop up or are mentioned …
“I once read somewhere that no man is an island. But I think maybe girls are,” (McCauley 35). Liv Whitlock has never known what home is. She and her twin sister have moved from foster home to foster home because of Liv’s own “volatile and violent” behaviour, but finally they’ve found a home with the Millers …
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation,” (Tartt 3). Richard Papen reflects back on his time as a student at Hampden, an elite college in Vermont where he studied in an elite class of six students with …
“Perhaps you don’t know this, my dear, but theatre can be very dangerous,” (Hammad 162). Actress Sonia Nasir comes to Haifa to visit her sister Haneen. It’s her first visit back since the second intifada, and she finds the Palestine of the present much different than her memories of her childhood visits. While staying In Haifa …
“If they try to strip you / of your technicolor robes / show them how the sun/ the moon / the stars / all kneel to Queens,” (Austin, “Genesis 37). Someday, I will be smart enough to write about poetry. But until then, you’ll have to deal with this.
“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness,” (Armfield 3). Miri’s wife Leah was only supposed to be gone for three weeks on a simple deep-sea research mission, but when the mission is delayed and the Centre that employed Leah stops calling …
“I’m terrified…that there is no world, no scenario, no reality in which I’ll gracefully allow you to leave,” (Hazelwood 379). The alliance between Weres and Vampyres has been shaky for centuries, one that has disrupted into full-blown war and only sometimes pacified when a Were and a Vampire agree to a one year marriage to …
I received this book from Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review. “Driving home, I’m caught in the crazy paradox: people want to be remembered when they’re gone, yet everyone’s afraid to talk about the dead. The fastest way to forget someone is to stop saying their name,” (Waite). When Jessica Waite’s husband dies suddenly …
You can bet that had I known there was a mermaid saint when I was preparing to get confirmed I would have wanted to choose her. That being said, I probably would have been too wracked with Catholic guilt to choose a mermaid for a saint name and would have stuck with St. Joan of …
“It wasn’t hard to be brave. Not if it was for someone you love,” (McCauley 336). After a tragedy that results in her mother’s death, Marin Blythe finds herself lost in the world until she receives a letter from her favourite horror author, Alice Lovelace and former friend of her mother, offering her a nanny position …
Sarah O'Connor 