Nothing Sacred by Lori Hahnel Published by Thistledown Press Review by Andréa Ledding $16.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-63-8 Lori Hahnel’s collection of 21 short stories, including the title piece “Nothing Sacred”, skillfully navigates through a working woman, city-gritty, dust devil tour of life rooted in the Canadian prairies and western foothills. Hahnel populates the pages with believable and provocative characters and situations with a strong sense of place, grounded solidly in the exceptional everyday. She questions and probes societal norms, values, and conventions with perception, humour, and sensitivity. Her language is direct and simple; she is a master at the art of “showing, not telling”. The alternating perspectives of mother and daughter in “The Least She Could Do” demonstrate this knack, or the complex depths of loss in the simple statement of a character in “Blue Lake”: “The body must have a memory of its own. I remember things about you I didn’t know I’d forgotten.” Her cast of dozens, almost exclusively female leads speaking in the first person, act as both personal tour guide and societal magnifying glass: examining relationships, roles, and institutions. Each story is an encounter where connections are made, secrets are shared, and insights sparkle out in an…

In Nobody Cries at Bingo Dawn Dumont shows us the ups and down of life on a Saskatchewan reserve. I came to this book not knowing much about life on the Rez, hoping to learn. But after reading Dumont’s stories about a prairie girl who loves to read, I realized that I’d come to understand more about our similarities than our differences.

Walking Through Shadows—stories from the edge of the world by Tara Manuel Published by Thistledown Press Review by Sandy Bonny $ 16.95 ISBN-13: 978-1897235867 There was a time when, in a small town there was no such thing as privacy. People lived side by side, knew one another’s business, and mostly kept one another’s secrets. In her second collection of short stories from Thistledown Press, maritime actor and author Tara Manuel imports modern entertainment culture to a rural world peopled by characters both familiar and fascinatingly unique. There are The Committee Lady, The Housewife, and the local politician, The White Prince—but behind closed doors, television and Internet open windows to apparent anonymity, and outside closed doors, the town’s residents run freed of their usual audience. The mute Butterfly Girl finds a lover and a voice, but her bravery is neither seen nor heard. Few notice The Arab, raised in the town’s theatre and living now, in ironic permanence, in the shell of an abandoned bus. Walking Woman, who prizes solitary evening adventures, struggles against an imported culture of fear and finds solace only in the binding security of her husband’s arms. The gruff divorcee, Shadow Dancer, waltzes in the privacy…

In the Embrace of the Alligator: Fictions from Cuba by Amanda Hale Published by Thistledown Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $18.95 CAD 987-1-897235-87-4 Amanda Hale’s 2011 book of short stories, In the Embrace of the Alligator: Fictions from Cuba, is a gripping celebration of mystery unraveled using beautiful language. Hale launches in with a story called “First Steps, Last Steps;” immediately gripping, beginning in the middle. The subject of the story is introduced: “His legs were twisted, as though they’d been torqued and broken, his feet wrapped in burlap with cardboard soles and twine to hold them firm. I’d done the left one, Leila the right, our hands twisting and binding.” I wondered if I was about to read a story about kidnapping, abuse? Is “he” a child, an adult, an animal? I didn’t know, but I was getting to the end of the story to find out. In the story “Witness,” I was astounded by Hale’s ability to achieve pathos. She describes a long wait, on a hot day: “She took the pen from him and patted his arm, then she signed, wanting only to get out of there and cross the street to her own home, to eat…

Odd Ball by Arthur John Stewart Published by Thistledown Press Review by Jessica Bickford $12.95 978-1-897235-88-1 Central Middle School is in dire straights in Arthur John Stewart’s first novel, Odd Ball, and no one knows just how to fix it. The students the book follows are all from different family situations, have different friends, and all want something different out of their middle school experience. Kevin just doesn’t want people calling him a geek (he thinks he isn’t, he can talk to girls); Jobbi, a recent immigrant from a small town in Latvia, doesn’t want to get beaten up every day for the way he talks; Paula wants to be noticed; and Stephanie wants everything to be like it was last year – fun. Odd Ball skips around all of these (and a few other) characters’ lives, all detailing what it is like to be in middle school and unhappy. Everyone wants change, but who will step up and demand it from themselves and from everyone around them? The students find it hard to be different when doing so makes you the target for some harsh bullies, and sometimes even harsher families. Jobbi earns some respect when he joins the…

Never Going Back by Antonia Banyard Published by Thistledown Press Review by Marie Powell Mendenhall $16.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-69-0 Never Going Back is about a group of friends who do go back – to their hometown of Nelson BC, to confront their past and each other in order to move on with their lives. The novels begins as Evan, Siobhan, and Lea make a road-trip home, some 10 years after high school, to attend the memorial of a high school friend. As they reunite with Lance and Mandy, they discover that each hides a secret related to their absent friend Kristy, and her suicide 10 years earlier. As Siobhan remembers it: “There they’d been, on the verge of real life, so how could one of them die? But September came and they scattered, each in their own direction, and before she knew it, their tight-knit group was over.” For them, “High school is a state of mind. Not a building, not a stage of life, but a worldview. Some people never grow out of it.” Antonia Banyard grew up in Nelson, after emigrating from Zambia to Canada, and recreates the setting with ease in her first novel. With chapters written from…

Paperwhite by Catherine Mamo Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-60-7 One cannot judge a book by its cover, it’s true, but on occasion a cover does manage to reflect the essence of a book. Paperwhite, a new collection of poetry by Catherine Mamo, of Peachland, BC, is a case in point. It’s tastefully fronted by a photograph of an unusual fruit or nut set on a block of wood. This spotlit “scene” is rendered before a rich brown background. The cover’s subdued and beautiful, as are the poems within it. It suggests that the natural world is important for this writer, and it leaves much room for imagining. Numerous contrasts are evident in these “confessional” poems; the poet examines her ordered, domestic life (as a wife and mother), and juxtaposes her “picket fence” lifestyle against nature’s attractive abandon. In “April II,” she writes” “why do children\keep arriving\why do they swing and laugh\why does the grass\bend its one colour so”. The poet dreams of drinking at a river “like bear or deer\tongue lapping\at the very origins,” (“Thirst”). In “I am a Lazy Wife,” she writes “I want\to enter a fish’s gullet\and swim there,\tiny as that…

Flyways by Devin Krukoff Published by Thistledown Press Ltd. Review by Cindy Wilson $19.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-77-5 Devin Krukoff has found a very unique way to introduce each of the characters in his novel. By using a short anecdote of a specific bird and its activities we are given a hint about each character in the story and their situation in life. In each chapter the small glimpse we are shown of each person’s existence is very significant. The author makes us feel that we know these characters on a personal level. We see how each character either has some tenuous, or very strong relationship, to another character in the story. The connection between specific events and an array of individuals illustrates the idea that there really is only six degrees of separation,and in some cases possibly less, between everyone in society. Krukoff’s novel encompasses a very wide range of human experience. He delves into family relationships where husbands, wives, and children are often disconnected and in distress. His characters are from all levels of society. Their actions and reactions to the situations they find themselves in reminds us how life can change in an instant. One example the author uses…

Raising Orion by Lesley Choyce Published by Thistledown Press Ltd Review by Cindy Wilson $19.95 978-1-897235-80-5 For those who believe in mystical events, miracles, and the endless possibilities of what can be achieved when you truly believe, Raising Orion is the book for you. If you are very skeptical about how one person’s mind can touch the mind of another, causing wondrous results, this is also the book for you. Molly grew up as the only child of a lighthouse keeper on a remote island near Halifax, Nova Scotia. Having no classmates or playmates, she developed a tremendous rapport with nature. As a young child she began resurrecting seemingly dead birds and small animals. When she was twelve her father was caught at sea in an October storm. He was thrown from his dory by a ten foot wave. As his lungs filled with sea water he sank to the harbour floor. At home on the island, Molly knows exactly when this happens. Amazingly, her father is found alive on shore the next morning. That same morning Molly awakes to find her bedroom rug soaked through with a clear fluid, “as if she had drunk a great volume of water…

The Kayak by Debbie Spring Published by Thistledown Press Review by Marie Powell Mendenhall $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-897235-71-3 Debbie Spring launches the action of her juvenile novel, The Kayak, in the opening chapters, when Teresa is kayaking around the islands of Georgian Bay. She notices a wind surfer in trouble, and manages a daring rescue, pulling him to shore by rope. Once on shore, though, Teresa’s father comes and lifts her from her kayak into her wheelchair. That doesn’t bother Jamie, who asks her to a campfire with his friends. In spite of the manipulations of his former girlfriend, Kat, Jamie tells Teresa: “There’s something special about you and I want to find out.” Written in the first person, the book’s style helps readers connect with Teresa: “The choppy waves rise and fall. My kayak bobs like a cork in the swirling waters of Georgian Bay. I love it. I feel wild and free… I am one with the kayak. The blue boat is an extension of my legs. I can do anything: I can go anywhere. Totally independent. Totally in control of my life. It’s so different back at shore.” Teresa easily solves the conflicts that arise in her life….