I was born and raised on the rugged island of Newfoundland and am enthralled by the ocean, its rhythm, its power. The setting of The Kerrigan Chronicles is the setting for my early life: same area, different era. As a child, I was unaware of the sacrifices and struggles of my ancestors. During cross-country telephone conversations with my aging father, I heard stories of poverty, illness, and war. When Dad described the earthquake and tsunami of 1929, I was hooked. I have written other novels, modern-day suspense that could quite frankly have been written by other people butThe Kerrigan Chronicles are mine and mine alone.
Set on the rugged island of Newfoundland, Of Sea and Seedtakes the reader on a tragic journey through the 1920s as one family struggles with secrets, betrayal, and a tsunami. Chronicling this journey is the family matriarch, Kathleen Kerrigan, who is condemned to an afterlife of atonement for her crimes in life. But what could cause heaven to banish this loving mother, grandmother, and storyteller?
A poetic, literary masterpiece, this first book of The Kerrigan Chronicles illuminates the depths of the human heart as it follows three generations of lives entangled with the sea. This suspenseful account of early twentieth-century Newfoundland is as stunningly lovely as it is devastatingly heartbreaking. Of Sea and Seed is a gripping family saga—an unforgettable must-read.
The setting of A Tale of Two Cities—the peacefulness in London andthe Reign of Terror in Paris--shapes this story of friendship and love and mistaken identity which leads one man to give his all for the love of his life. Sydney Carton’s story is haunting and inspiring, an undying source of inspiration for me, a tale which I have referenced in my own work. The writer in me finds further inspiration from the writer Charles Dickens who self-published this remarkable story, serializing it in thirty-one weekly parts, from April to November of 1859, as the lead piece in his own new journal, All the Year Round.
Sydney Carton is a lawyer who has wasted his abilities and his life. Now he has to make a difficult choice about what is really important to him, which could be a matter of life or death. The French Revolution is running its violent course; lives are ruined as a new France is created. How did the gentle Doctor Manette and his daughter Lucie become caught up in France's struggles? What is the real identity of the handsome Charles Darnay, who wins Lucie's hand in marriage? And why does the shadow of La Bastille Prison hang over them all? The…
Set on a Canadian prairie plain in the 1930s, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the coming-of-age story of a young Saskatchewan boy, Brian O’Connal, as he seeks meaning in life, death, and God. I love this book for its lyrical use of the wind which constantly sweeps across the prairie and through every aspect of the story. This book influenced me as a writer because I hoped to personify the sea the way W.O Mitchell did the wind.
Hailed as “one of the finest Canadian novels ever written” by The Globe and Mail, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind is a beloved mainstay of Canadian literature. This new, abridged audio edition is read by the author himself.
Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve…
Recommended by a book-loving friend in Tai Chi class (Thanks, Shirley) The Crimson Petal and the White is a lengthy yet riveting journey into Dickensian London. The writer invites the reader into the streets at the outset, breaking the veil between narrator and reader, warning the reader “watch your step.” I couldn’t help but accept this invitation and, once there, I couldn’t leave. I followed the narrator through poverty-stricken alleys where I met the Crimson Petal (Sugar, the prostitute) and from there into the world of the White (Agnes, the innocent), two women connected by business magnate William Rackam. A delicious read.
'Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them . . .'
So begins this irresistible voyage into the dark side of Victorian London. Amongst an unforgettable cast of low-lifes, physicians, businessmen and prostitutes, meet our heroine Sugar, a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can. Be prepared for a mesmerising tale of passion, intrigue, ambition and revenge.
This book had me at the first line… “They’re all dead now.” Fall on Your Knees is haunted with ghosts and music and religion and set in a dark, lonely coal mining community of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia Canada. From there it meanders to New York and through the no man’s land of WWI, all the while spewing secrets and lies of five generations of the Piper family. The mysterious atmosphere of this book and the compelling characters kept me reading constantly. I couldn’t put the book down until I had consumed all five hundred sixty-six pages.
Following the curves of the twentieth century, FALL ON YOUR KNEES takes us from haunted Cape Breton island in Nova Scotia through the battlefields of World War I into the emerging jazz scene in New York City, and immerses us in the lives of four unforgettable sisters. The children of a driven and ambitious father, the sisters -Kathleen, the oldest, a beautiful talent intent on a career as an opera diva; Frances, the drunken rogue and child prostitute; Lily, the pseudo-saint cripple; and Mercedes, the fervent Catholic and protector of the flock - are swept along by the tumult of…
A colleague (Thanks, Rob) recommended this to me because it deals with Newfoundland (my home) and with the romance and ambition of Premier Joseph Smallwood who led Newfoundland to join Canada. I recall Premier Smallwood arriving in my community to preside over a bridge opening. I, age nine, scampered through the crowd and stopped dead in front of a man in a black wool overcoat. I looked up: black fedora; black horn-rimmed glasses. Shocked at almost slamming into the premier, I ran. Only one thought occurred: he looked so small in that heavy coat. The Colony of Unrequited Dreamstells of this small man’s relentless quest for leadership: in the absence of roads, he campaigned by walking the railroad tracks in the dead of winter, ending up skin and bones and darn near dead. My road to my roots started with this reading.
A mystery and a love story spanning five decades, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic portrait of passion and ambition, set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland.
In this widely acclaimed novel, Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become New Foundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career.
I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.
Stefan promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations. Their mutual attraction is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood. Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie's aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program. Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his…
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
Nova Scotia,
Saskatchewan,
and
war.
