Climate change is both an external and internal phenomenon in Catherine Bush’s brilliant new novel, Blaze Island. Set on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, its cast of characters includes a renegade climate scientist and his young daughter Miranda. They are self-made castaways who can’t get far enough away from what’s chasing them: memories of loss, threats of scandal, and the increasingly dangerous weather itself. The novel is an ever-moving storm of emotion and politics that unfolds under churning skies and life-or-death stakes. Miranda, a young woman on the verge of adulthood and independence, is a marvelous creation and a portrait of a soul in progress. Bush brings together a complicated cast of three-dimensional men and women, all fighting with and against each other in the name of saving the planet … or making a buck. A tale of greed, hope, and love, it is a beautifully written and challenging novel by one of Canada’s best writers.
—Michael Redhill, Giller-Prize-winning author of Bellevue Square
Catherine Bush is the author of four novels. Her work has been critically acclaimed, published internationally and shortlisted for literary awards. —Michael Redhill, Giller-Prize-winning author of Bellevue Square (2013) was one of NOW magazine’s Best Ten Books of 2013, an Amazon.ca Best Book and a Canada Reads Top 40 pick. Minus Time (1993), her first novel, was shortlisted for the Books in Canada/SmithBooks First Novel Award and the City of Toronto Book Award. Her second novel, The Rules of Engagement (2000), was a national bestseller and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book and one of the Globe and Mail’s Best Books of the Year. Her third novel, Claire’s Head(2004), was shortlisted for Ontario’s Trillium Award and was a Globe Best Book of the Year.
Blaze Island’s expected publication date is September 1, 2020.
Goodreads Reviews
3.3 rating based on 454 ratings (all editions)
ISBN-10: 1773101056
ISBN-13: 9781773101057
Goodreads: 53483625
Author(s): Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 9/1/2020
For those who loved Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior comes a new climate-themed, Shakespeare-inspired novel from bestselling author Catherine Bush.
The time is now or an alternate near now, the world close to our own. A mammoth Category Five hurricane sweeps up the eastern seaboard of North America, leaving devastation in its wake, its outer wings brushing over tiny Blaze Island in the North Atlantic.
Just as the storm disrupts the present, it stirs up the past: Miranda’s memories of growing up in an isolated, wind-swept cove and the events of long ago that her father will not allow her to speak of. In the aftermath of the storm, she finds herself in a world altered so quickly and so radically that she hardly knows what has happened. As Miranda says, change is clear after it happens. (Goose Lane Editions)
