Wounded Hearts Take a Chanceby Debbie QuigleyPublished by Endless Sky BooksReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$9.99 ISBN 9781989398722 Wounded Hearts Take A Chance is an attractive book with a positive message: women can recover from intense heartbreak and love again. Written by Debbie Quigley, a “retired healthcare worker” who writes “simple and real” poetry in what she calls her “whisper-art form,” this 28-page softcover is a poetic self-help read for those “whose wounded hearts have been shattered into pieces, those who are afraid to take a chance on loving another man”. Across pages topped with light floral graphics, Quigley unfolds the narrative of a woman who has been “Keeping walls around her heart” and “Drying her own tears,” but, she writes, “Gazing at the stars at night” and “Holding a warm hand” are what “We all want,” and she encourages the reader to “Let someone in [their] life!”. The thirteen free verse poems are ordered chronologically as a new relationship blossoms, beginning with a “first-glance attraction” that results in a dinner date. After this, “Exhilarated excitement enters her focus/Words of trust being built/Each word a brick of trust/Bringing her to the point of slowly tearing down the walls/around her heart”. Once…

Neighbours Helping Neighbours: The Story of Good Neighbours Food Centreby Wilmer FroesePublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Toby A. Welch$24.95 ISBN 9781778690150  I love books that started out as a passion project as the author’s enthusiasm shows through in the words. That is clearly the case with Neighbours Helping Neighbours. In a world filled with negativity and news channels that promote doom and gloom, Neighbours Helping Neighbours is a breath of sunshine. It gave me long-term warm fuzzies. The story of the Good Neighbours Food Centre reaffirmed to me that there is still so much good in this world. People who care are out there.  This book shares an inspiring success story that took place in Rosthern, a small town located halfway between Saskatoon and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The community banded together to create a food bank for people who lived with food insecurity. The author, Wilmer Froese, shared the initial planning of the food bank with two other community-minded people. Their vision statement was simple: to give food to people who need it. They opened in September 2011, operating one day a week at the local senior centre before upgrading to a standalone building. They faced some huge obstacles over the following years…

Backwater Mystic Bluesby Lloyd RatzlaffShadowpaw Press RepriseReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$18.99 ISBN 9781989398609 I somehow missed Backwater Mystic Blues—the contemplative collection of essays by Saskatoon’s Lloyd Ratzlaff—when it was first published in 2006. Shame on me, for I greatly admired Ratzlaff’s earlier book, The Crow Who Tampered With Time, and bought several copies. And shame on me, as—disclaimer—I call this gracious writer a friend. Fortunately, fate’s found a way to deliver Ratzlaff’s second essay collection into my hands these many years later, and like a song you’ve not heard in a long time but, upon listening again, remember how much you enjoyed, I’m so pleased to hear the distinguished yet down-home voice of my old Mennonite friend—a former minister, counsellor and educator—once again. Backwater Mystic Blues has been reborn with Shadowpaw Press Reprise, a press that publishes “New editions of notable, previously published books”. Hurray, that. These cultivated essays are reminiscences of a life lived with intention, but also with abundant questioning (particularly spiritual) and grief (the dissolution of a marriage, career dissatisfaction, deaths). What you’ll also find here is gentleness, nature keenly observed, scholarship, and page-by-page evidence of a human who walks through this world with a generous heart….

Daughter of Earth: Book Four of the Leather Book Talesby Regine HaenselPublished by Serimuse BooksReview by Toby A. Welch$14.95 ISBN 9780993903236 Fantasy books are so hit and miss for me. I either love or hate the world that the author created and I am thrust into. In the case of Daughter of Earth, I love where author Haensel’s creativity took her. The world that revolves around Alizarine and Samel kept me sucked in, eager to keep flipping the pages. As the title points out, this is book four in The Leather Book Tales set. The author best explains this book collection: “The Leather Book Tales is a fantasy set in western North America. Four powers – fire, water, air, and earth – reveal themselves in four young people, triggered and enhanced by a pair of silver bracelets. The young people’s abilities increase as they overcome challenges and collaborate against forces that oppose and threaten them. The Leather Book holds old and tangled tales that connect with what is happening to them, but the stories don’t reveal all that is behind the events. The young people face risks, not only for themselves but also for the world and its people.” A huge bonus…