From the rocky shorelines of Newfoundland, a troubled pair of sisters find themselves searching through old wounds and fresh scars while running the gauntlet of what could be ghosts in their family home. These ideas were enough to make me want to read on, but I was unprepared for the real horrors that awaited these characters, and how much I cared about them, and their story, along the way.

Gerard Collins has played quite a trick with his new novel, The Hush Sisters. By luring the reader into his ghost riddled family mansion, he has left us open and unsuspecting of the pain and heartbreak that we live with these characters, and the histories that intertwine in these dark halls and creaking attics, could be our own. Continue reading The Hush Sisters: Gerard Collins’ New Novel Takes Us Into a Deeper Dark →

Watermark, the story collection from Christy Ann Conlin, is striking in many ways, but I was not prepared for the emotional resonance that sprung forth from its pages.

The collection is made up of eleven stories, many taking the reader into the Annapolis Valley, but it is not the place many of us may feel familiar with. This is a stark and sometimes dark place, hiding mysteries and threats that we may only be mildly aware of until it is too late.

It is a place of family legend, misty shores and family homes and secrets abandoned in the forest. Continue reading Searching for Pieces on a Rocky Shore — Christy Ann Conlin’s ‘Watermark’ →