The Lavender Childby Harriet RichardsPublished by Shadowpaw Press RepriseReview by Toby A. Welch  $24.99 ISBN 9781998273201 The Lavender Child is a beautifully unique and creative story with unforgettable characters and a plot that keeps readers intrigued. I wasn’t surprised to learn that this powerful read was a winner of the Saskatchewan Book Awards First Book prize when it was initially published. If you are like me and wonder what the title is referencing – what the heck is a lavender child? – I have the answer! When one of the main characters is born, Dion, he is limp and looks close to death. Another child was born into the family decades earlier that only lived for two weeks and fought for every breath. Both babies were a shade of blue, hence “lavender child.” (I should mention that this book might be a bit challenging for people who have lost babies or experienced children with health issues.) I loved that when reading this story about three generations of a family that we are thrown back into a time when life wasn’t so chaotic and technologically driven. But it’s not so far back that this would be considered historical fiction. After all, the book mentions…

The Pious Robber by Harriet Richards Published by Thistledown Press Review by Justin Dittrick $18.95 ISBN 978-1-927068-18-2 Harriet Richards’ The Pious Robber presents its readers with eight stories that will mesmerize, disturb, and delight. Every story in the collection strikes to the bone, and is brilliantly conceived and beautifully realized. One will be tempted to read the collection in one sitting, though the depth of the stories provides much fruit for multiple readings, honest reflection, and some animated and imaginative discussion. Richards is blessed with an unimpeachable understanding of illness, childhood, family, loss, and human psychology. Her narration is cool and detached, her dialogue crisp and seamless. This work is weighty and balanced: highly observant, darkly comic, and always fascinating. This collection especially shines where it examines human frailty within the accepted boundaries that mark convention, produce (unwanted?) self-knowledge, and touch that squishy place in our psyche where we are most vulnerable and recriminatory. There are plenty of cringe-worthy moments in the stories “Tangible Reminders” and “Sometimes it Seemed”. These seem to be the moments in which intelligent people must work with the seemingly harmless social and cultural excesses that make day-to-day life a minefield. In “Tangible Reminders”, the main…