Tag Archives: Writing

Writing

Book Review: Close to the Canvas – Mark Blagrave’s ‘Lay Figures’

The creation of art, that dark and terrifying zone between futile effort and the bright glow of creative ecstasy, is a strange and wonderful place to set a novel. But then, you could also place your characters between the fallout of the great depression and the grinding wheels of history while the world stumbled toward a second world war. In his new work of historical fiction, Lay Figures, Mark Blagrave has done both. Continue reading Book Review: Close to the Canvas – Mark Blagrave’s ‘Lay Figures’ →

Writing

The Hush Sisters: Gerard Collins’ New Novel Takes Us Into a Deeper Dark

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 →

Writing

Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion – Tyler LeBlanc’s Deep Dive Into the Acadian Deportation

Growing up as an Anglophone, Tyler LeBlanc hadn’t always known the true history of his ancestors. It wasn’t until he was in his early twenties, when asked by a historian what he knew about his lineage, that LeBlanc began to seriously dig into his ancestry and question the stories he had grown up believing. What he discovered set into motion years of research.

Providing a unique, more personal perspective to the Acadian Expulsion, LeBlanc dives deep into his ancestral history in his latest book, Acadian Driftwood.  Following the interconnected but separate stories of a number of LeBlanc’s distant relatives, Acadian Driftwood wraps readers in the severity of Acadian suffering and the strength of the Acadian soul.
Continue reading Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion – Tyler LeBlanc’s Deep Dive Into the Acadian Deportation →