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A vivid, moving novel reminiscent of Anthony Doerr and Michael Ondaatje, about the entwined fates of two very different refugees. In 1940, as the shadow of war lengthens over Europe, three mysterious travelers enter a village in Spain. They have the appearance of Parisian intellectuals, but the trio of two men and a woman are starving and exhausted from crossing illegally through the Pyrenees. Their story, told over a period of 48 tense hours, is narrated by one of the men, who slowly accepts his unthinkable fate. In a voice despairing and elegant, he calmly considers what he should do, and weighs what any one life means. As he does so, his attention is caught by a five-year-old named Pia wh...
'Strange and absorbing . . . I relished this book' - Penelope Lively, The New York Times Book Review 'Sensitive, melancholy, sharply observant. A work of great power' - Guardian Jane was fifteen when her life changed for ever. In the woods surrounding a Yorkshire country house, she took her eyes off the little girl she was minding and the girl slipped into the trees - never to be seen again. Now an adult, Jane is obsessed with another disappearance: that of a young woman who walked out of a Victorian lunatic asylum one day in 1877. As Jane pieces together moments in history, forgotten stories emerge - of sibling jealousy, illicit affairs, and tragic death . . . 'Ambitious, inticate . . . cle...
"Stay" follows Abbey, a young woman from Canada now living in a village outside Galway. She falls in love with Dermot, an older Irish man, in an unconventional, affectionate but troubled relationship. The extraordinary skill of "Stay" lies in its unsentimental depiction of modern Ireland. The inhabitants of Dermot's village form a riotous and poignant chorus, commenting on their rapidly changing world with wit and insight. Here is a beautiful, funny and richly rewarding novel about history and obligation, and above all, the meaning of human connection in a land poised uneasily between past and present.
A Ragged Pen brings to the page five essays on memory. First delivered in Vancouver in the spring of 2005, these talks-by Robert Finley, Patrick Friesen, Aislinn Hunter, Anne Simpson and Jan Zwicky-examine the narrative challenges, lyric energy and questions of verity that surround the subject of memory in a creative context. Finley's essay searches out appropriate, genuine voices for memories. Comparing photo narrative projects, his own and a friend's, he proposes a form of storytelling that incorporates both memory and creation, a dialogue that speaks to, rather than for, the past. Within the discussion of narrative Zwicky posits a distinction between lyric and narrative treatments of memo...
With a serial killer on the loose Detective Kihlberg must delve into a nightmare world of hidden lives, lost identities and secret rituals... This is the world of the Crow Girl. It starts with just one body - the hands bound, the skin covered in marks. Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg is determined to find out who is responsible, despite opposition from her superiors. When two more bodies are discovered, it becomes clear that she is hunting a serial killer. With her career on the line, Kihlberg turns to psychotherapist Sofia Zetterlund. Together, they expose a chain of shocking events that began decades ago - but will it lead them to the murderer before someone else dies? 'A compulsive page-turner' Sunday Express 'Compelling... we are left gasping for breath' Daily Mail 'There's a fantastic twist... the pace of its revelations is relentless' Observer
Prue McKeel is keeping out of trouble. Or trying to. Then her baby brother is abducted by crows and hauled off to the woods beyond the city. It is up to Prue to bring him back. On her mission she is plunged into the world of Wildwood and there she meets more trouble - and magic - than she ever thought possible.
A collection of engaging essays on writing and material culture that addresses our ability to know or understand ?things?. In A Peepshow with Views of the Interior, acclaimed fiction writer and poet. Aislinn Hunter writes lyrical paratexts on topics ranging from Charlotte Bront�'s dogs, bird displays in museums, peep shows, and clocks and convalescence.
In 2007, at the age of sixty, Betsy Warland finds herself single and without a sense of family. On an impulse, she decides to travel to London to celebrate her birthday, where she experiences an odd compulsion to see an exhibit on the invention of military camouflage. Within the first five minutes of her visit, her lifelong feeling of being aberrant reveals its source: she had never learned the art of camouflage. This marked the beginning of OSCAR OF BETWEEN: A MEMOIR OF IDENTITY AND IDEAS. Taking the name Oscar, she embarks on an intimate, nine-year quest by telling her story as "a person of between." As Oscar, she is able to make sense of her self and the culture that shaped her. She trace...
Cornelia Hoogland takes the story of Little Red Riding Hood and turns it inside out in this sensuous Canadian retelling. The woods and wolves are vivid and real, while Red herself is anything but a one dimensional girl-child. A meditation on innocence and its loss, and on the power of the green wilderness, Woods Wolf Girl uses striking lyric poetry to expose the heart of the original fairy tale.
What's Left Us is a stunning fiction debut by one of the most promising new writers in Canada. The novella and stories in these pages startle and engage the reader with their humour, warmth and grace. The novella traces one week in the life of a young, unmarried Irish woman about to give birth. The heroine is a hip, independent woman who muses on memory, love, loss and inheritance in a clever, wry and moving way. The other stories are set in Dublin, the U.K., Vancouver and Ontario and continue Hunter's funny and insightful exploration of quirky characters and situations. What's Left Us offers us exacting and exciting words by a prodigiously talented young writer.