Side Chick Nation, Aya de León

Click here to return to the series About the Book I was drawn to this book after reading Anna Burke’s Compass Rose, which tied Hurricanes Maria and Irma to climate change, albeit it had a different approach (science fiction and fantasy) as opposed to Aya’s novel Side Chick Nation (contemporary […]

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Barn 8, Deb Olin Unferth

Funny, whimsical, philosophical, and heartbreaking, Barn 8 ultimately asks: What constitutes meaningful action in a world so in need of change? Unferth comes at this question with striking ingenuity, razor-sharp wit, and ferocious passion. Barn 8 is a rare comic-political drama, a tour de force for our time. Goodreads Reviews […]

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Accidentals, Susan M. Gaines

When Gabriel’s immigrant mother returns to her native Uruguay, he takes a break from his uninspiring job to accompany her. Immersed in his squabbling family, birdwatching in the wetlands on their abandoned ranch, and falling in love with a local biologist, he makes discoveries that force him to contend with […]

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Hold Back the Tide, Melinda Salisbury

Everyone knows what happened to Alva’s mother, all those years ago. But when dark forces begin to stir in Ormscaula, Alva has to face a very different future – and question everything she thought she knew about her past, Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy

Propelled by a narrator as fierce and fragile as the terns she is following, Migrations is a shatteringly beautiful ode to the wild places and creatures now threatened. But at its heart, it is about the lengths we will go, to the very edges of the world, for the people […]

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The Rain Heron

Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron [is] described by its publishers as an “ecological fable. –INews UK Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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The Inland Sea, Madeleine Watts

Written with down-to-earth lucidity and ethereal breeziness, this is an unforgettable debut about coming of age in a world that seems increasingly hostile. Watts explores feminine fear, apathy and danger, building to a tightly controlled bushfire of ecological and personal crisis. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel

Weaving together the lives of these characters, The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the wilderness of northern Vancouver Island, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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A Word About Covid-19

As many of you may know, my husband and I began the process of planning a move from Vancouver to Halifax. This started before the coronavirus hit. And even in our latest planning, the disease had not become a pandemic yet and Canada was still considered low risk. As we […]

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Where the Oceans Hide their Dead, John Yunker

Click here to return to the series I’m happy to revisit John Yunker’s work. We previously chatted, along with Midge Raymond, about publishing and environmental fiction. His newest novel, Where the Oceans Hide their Dead (Ashland Creek Press, 2019), gazes at various places in the world where the characters work, […]

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If We Were Giants, Dave Matthews and Clete Barrett Smith

Yes, it’s the Dave Matthews we all love. For his debut novel, Dave Matthews found inspiration close to home.He was recording music in New Orleans years ago when he started imaging the story of “If We Were Giants.”  His twin daughters were 6. While they played in the trees, the […]

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The World on Either Side, Diane Terrana

Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen Young Adult Fiction Content Warning: This book includes descriptions of death, depression, attempted suicide, animal poaching, animal cruelty, forced migration, human trafficking, war, genocide, child soldiers, and rape. Following the death of her boyfriend, high school senior Valentine falls into a severe depression and nearly overdoses […]

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A Peculiar Peril, Jeff VanderMeer

Jonathan Lambshead stands to inherit his deceased grandfather’s overstuffed mansion—a veritable cabinet of curiosities–once he and two schoolmates catalog its contents. But the three soon discover that the house is filled with far more than just oddities: It holds clues linking to an alt-Earth called Aurora, where the notorious English […]

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The Wormwood Trilogy, Tade Thompson

In the Wormwood Trilogy’s concluding two novels, The Rosewater Insurrection (2019) and The Rosewater Redemption (2019), the seeds of colonial invasion, alien supposition, and systemic control planted in readers’ minds during the first novel sprout into deadly blooms. –LA Review of Books Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads Click here for […]

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