by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Think of the word “mongrel” and the image of a mixed-breed dog comes to mind. In this case, the term refers to the ethnically mixed protagonists in Montreal writer Marko Sijan’s debut collection of short fiction. Replete with sex, violence and moral ambiguity, his...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
In 1915, at the time of the First World War, the Canadian government rounded up male Ukrainian immigrants and placed them in camps. Because Austria had taken over Ukraine and because Canada was now at war with Austria, these men were regarded as enemy aliens. In her...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Suspicion, as the reader may suspect, is a mystery, but it’s much more than that. I very much enjoyed it, despite the fact that we more or less know, or think we know, what has happened. This is a book with multiple viewpoints, but the shifting views work well as the...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Dave Williamson’s protagonist, Jenkins, is horny. His wife of many years, Barbara, passed away a couple of years before. And now, Jenkins is looking for love in all the wrong places. Will Jenkins find love or, at least, a cure for his horniness? That’s what this novel...
by prfire | Oct 24, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
According to author Alison Preston, strange things happen even in quiet suburbs. In fact, her sixth novel spins such a tale. Winner of the 2012 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, the book recounts the story of an eccentric young woman and an unsolved murder in...
by prfire | Oct 24, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
It may say something about Canada and Canadians that one of our canonical twentieth-century novels was called Beautiful Losers. And perhaps, in light of the 2012 Olympics, it’s instructive that as a nation we’ve focused so much attention on a soccer team that was,...
