It’s been a dreary couple of days here on the prairies but the Thanksgiving prep has begun. The menu is set. Turkey and all the trimmings. I’m planning on making both a pumpkin and apple pie. So, fingers crossed it all turns out.
Top Five Writing Things I’m Thankful For This Year:
Putting together a series ‘bible’ for my upcoming Whisper Creek books.
Listening to Jennifer Podemski talk about her journey as an First Nations actor and producer in the entertain industry.
I hope that wherever you are, you are surrounded by peace and kindness. And if that is not the case, may you find a few moments of respite from it all.
Until next time…
I hope this weekend you are able to take advantage of both a quiet corner and a good book.
For those of you who want the opposite of last week’s book recommendation. Follow the Swallow Home by Annette Bower falls solidly in the gentle romance genre.
Published: 2023 Soulmate Publishing
Categories: Contemporary Romance / Small Town Romance / Gentle Romance
Blurb:
At a crossroads, Keanna Dixon packs her car and hits the road. She stops in the small town of Regina Beach, where she pitches her tent after deciding to stay awhile. At twenty-five she’s ready to put down roots and this little town may be the perfect place to do it.
Keith Campbell, at thirty, is happy with his independent life. Computers are his playground, racquetball his sport, and his thoughts are not concerned about love or family. But with the unexpected responsibility of caring for his five-year-old deaf nephew, he finds himself on a ranch, because of a pony.
Keith knows all about apps and blogs, and he hopes his research will assist him in showing Keanna that he is her home.
My Thoughts:
The story revolves around Gerry, a young boy who has lost his hearing and who is grieving the loss of his father. When his mother is called back into service and sent overseas, his Uncle Keith steps in to look after him. He meets Keanna, who has experience within the deaf and hard of hearing community, when his nephew starts to feel overwhelmed and she offers to help them adjust to new circumstances.
The main characters, Keanna, Keith and Gerry are well developed and you really get to know who they are. Keanna and Keith have different approaches to solving challenges. But they listen to each other and they find a way to work together. The quaint resort town of Regina Beach is the perfect setting and a lovely look at life in a rural Saskatchewan. You are introduced to many examples of this as Keanna and Keith get to know each other.
Follow the Swallow Home fits perfectly into the gentle romance genre. You find tenderness in the timely arrival of a little teddy bear that gives Keanna someone to talk to as she searches for connection within the small town. You find it in sticky notes Keith places around their rooms to help his little nephew. You find it the baking of cakes, and the offering of apples to horses, and in all the little things this community does to take care of each other. It’s what you find within the pages of an Annette Bower book. Gentle stories about real people connecting with each other and their surroundings. Definitely recommend.
Until next time…
It’s the first day of fall! Who’s happy to see the season change? I’m definitely looking forward to slightly cooler temperatures.
One of my reading goals for 2023, actually my only reading goal, is to read more Canadian authors who’ve written stories set in Canada. Particularly when it comes to the romance genre, which is my favourite for obvious reasons. But I’m also looking for that criteria in general fiction too. Which led me to Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel.
Categories: Historical Fiction / Fiction / Canadian History / Canadian Setting /
The Blurb:
1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride.
1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse.
With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.
My Thoughts:
Set in the 1600s, Daughters of the Deer is a very moving and heart wrenching story of how Indigenous women were stripped of their humanity and culture under colonization. Daniel writes of Marie, an Algonkin woman, who is forced to marry a French settler, whose religious ethics clash with Marie’s Algonquin beliefs. She details Marie’s life and gives us a thought provoking look into an Indigenous woman’s experiences with early settlers that few people have heard or been taught. Daniel’s ability to intertwine those harsh realities with the details of everyday life for Marie and the community make for a very compelling and thought provoking read. This book is going to stay with me for a long time. Definitely recommend.
Does it make sense to say the days were long but the month flew by? I’ve been in hibernation mode, or wintering, for most of this month. I baked a couple of things, I read a couple of books and I revised a couple of scenes.
I will say that this January had to have been very pretty, a real winter wonderland. We have had lots of fog here, which is a departure from the norm, which resulted in rime frost.
Book Round Up:
I finished Eden Robinson‘s Trickster trilogy. I loved this book and this trilogy. Eden Robinson’s way of weaving carnage and humour makes for an epic read. The final instalment, Return of the Trickster, was a page turner full of magical realism, complicated intergenerational family dynamics and rich storytelling. So much happening. So many characters. Yet, manageable, if that make sense. And Jared. I kept rooting for him. Kept hoping he’d remain tender-hearted while he figured out how to survive all the time supported by a fabulous cast of fierce female characters.
I also read a book by a dear writer friend, Donna Gartshore. Finding Her Voice is a lovely, tenderhearted story of what it looks like to move forward from trauma. They’re both looking for a fresh start while keeping up the walls that have protected them after life dealt bitter hurts. They both have plans for the clinic where Bridget work and both are at cross purposes. But when Sawyer’s grief stricken daughter bonds with Bridget’s shy dog, they have to look deep to take the next step. Sweet, charming, and set in the lovely town of Green Valley, Finding Her Voice will tug at your heartstrings and have you rooting for Bridget and Sawyer.
And my book recommendation for January is Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn, who is one of my favourite authors and you can read my review here.
Baking Round Up:
I made my favourite muffin recipe, Blueberry Turmeric Muffins from Renee Kohlman’s lovely cookbook, All The Sweet Things. You can find her blog, Sweet Sugar Bean here. If you love cookbooks, Renee Kohlman’s two cookbooks are beautiful and include personal stories and I highly recommend buying either of the them. Bonus she’s from Saskatchewan!
I’ve ordered the turkey from a local grocer. I shopped for the rest of the food on ten percent Tuesday. By accident, but still. I’m feeling very organized. It feels like forever since I’ve hosted a holiday meal and I’m very excited about the whole business of setting out a feast.
My Go To Roast Turkey Recipe:
This cookbook, Canadian Living Cooks Step by Step, is over twenty years old. So, I guess you could say it’s vintage. The photos are certainly dated. But the recipes are still awesome. And you get basic step by step visual instructions. It’s one of my favourite cookbooks.
It’s true that in Canada British explorer Martin Frobisher held a thanksgiving feast in Newfoundland 1578 with salted beef and mushy peas so thankful was he for being alive after a failed attempt to discover the Northwest Passage, but Indigenous peoples have held fall harvest celebrations for thousands of years before the first settlers arrived. And no doubt they were tastier too.
Our big dinner is tomorrow, so I’ll be stuffing a turkey and mashing potatoes. There will be carrots and salad and buns. And linens on the dining room table. There will be cranberry sauce and dessert.There will be stories, old and new, told as we sit shoulder to shoulder at the table. If necessary, I’ll steer the talk away from politics. We’ll be together and we’ll hold the ones not able to make it in our hearts.
From our table to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.
Until next time…
Turkey? Ham? Roast cauliflower? What’s your go to fancy feast dinner?
I read some great books in April. Two of those came in the form of ARCs (Advanced Reader Copy) from Netgalley and I loved them both! Every Summer After by Carley Fortune and When It Falls Apart by Catherine Bybee.
Categories: Women’s Fiction / Contemporary Romance / Canadian Author / Canadian Setting /
The Blurb:
Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.
For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
My Thoughts:
Every Summer After is Carley Fortune’s debut novel. It starts with the present then takes us back to summers in Barry’s Bay, Ontario. It’s no secret that I LOVE a Canadian setting, and there’s nothing better than summer in Canada. On Persephone Fraser’s first day at the lake, she meets the boy next door, Sam Florek.
Best friends and summer neighbours, Persephone and Sam lead separate lives during the school year. But during the summers they are inseparable, spending days an idyllic summer bubble. Until the reality of college and adulting sets in and decisions are made that can’t be undone. Twelve years later they meet again.
Whether you still dream of your first love, or have moved on and left it in the past, this book will speak to you. All the looks back will resonate. You’ll fall in love with Persephone and Sam and Barry’s Bay. I wish I could read it again for the first time. Highly recommend!
Bonus Book: When It all Falls Apart by Catherine Bybee
Categories: Contemporary Romance / Romance / Single Dad / Family Romance /
The Blurb:
A bittersweet romance about the power of love in the face of heartbreak and loss.
Brooke Turner has always had a complicated relationship with her father. But when his health takes a turn for the worse, she drops everything to care for him. He’s her dad, after all, and he needs her. What Brooke doesn’t anticipate is the unraveling of her long-term relationship and a cross-country move to San Diego’s Little Italy.
Luca D’Angelo is the oldest of three children and a single father to a young daughter. When his mother rents the top floor of their house to Brooke, he’s angry. Who is this beautiful stranger with no ties to the neighborhood? Can she be trusted in such close proximity to his family?
As Luca learns of Brooke’s difficult journey with her ailing father, his heart softens. And Brooke, who witnesses Luca’s struggle as a single parent, develops feelings for him too. But when it all falls apart, will love heal their wounded hearts?
My Thoughts:
This is my first time reading Catherine Bybee and it definitely won’t be my last. The first book in the D’Angelo series, When It All Falls Apart takes place in Little Italy in San Diego. There is enough heart, family and Italian food in this book to satisfy everyone. There is the relationship with Brooke and Luca, of course. But’s it’s also about what happens when relationships with parents are not only hard but heartbreaking. There is no such thing as the perfect family. It’s also true that family leaves scars that are hard to heal.
I loved the dialogue. I loved the setting. Who can resist a loud Italian family? But I also appreciated the honest look at what happens when it all falls apart. I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read the next one in the series. Definitely recommend.
Until next time…
Who else is looking forward to summer? I’d love some summer reading suggestions! Bonus points if they have a Canadian setting.
The sun is setting earlier and rising later. Kind of like me. I love Octobers, especially if they are as beautiful and warm as this month has been. October also gives me an excuse to use one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
We’re thinking of cancelling of our cable television package and are experimenting with streaming our favourite shows, which are few and far between these days. Like, good grief, another NCIS show? How do we feel about the return of CSI: Las Vegas? How is Survivor still on the air? Anyone else feeling like there’s nothing to watch on TV? Or am I in a funk? A deep, deep funk. Admittedly, that due to this never ending pandemic. But still…
There are a few bright spots, of course. I’m liking La Brea. Still enjoying The Rookie and The Equalizer. And Bob Hearts Abishola is always a delight. There’s also some great Canadian programming out there right now. And it doesn’t get enough attention.
Family Law is my new favourite television program this fall. Family dysfunction at its best. And who doesn’t love Victor Garber. The series is part legal procedural, part family dramedy, created by Susin Nielsen. It’s family dysfunction at its best and the chemistry between the characters is fabulous. I was fortunate enough to meet Susin Nielsen at The Saskatchewan Festival of Words in 2019. The talent that comes to this festival is off the charts. I highly recommend attending. And I definitely recommend Nielsen’s books!
I enjoy watching baking shows a lot more than actually baking. Who’s with me? I don’t know how these amateur bakers stay so composed under pressure. I’d crumble like, well, crumble.
For when you need a laugh. Jann Arden is not scared to poke fun at herself. On the show, she plays an unapologetic, self-centred, aging singer songwriter who’s career is on the cusp of obscurity. It’s so funny. And poignant. And she’s surrounded by a super talented cast.
What I’m reading:
Print: Gutter Child by Jael Richardson. A dystopian story about a girl who must overcome the dictates of a harsh regime and find a life and freedom.
Audio: A Treacherous Curse: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery, Book 3, written by Deanna Raybourn and narrated by Angele Masters. Still loving this series! Both the story and the narrator. Also, waiting for these two to finally sleep together is killing me.
Until next time…
What’s everyone watching these days? Any new shows you would recommend? Any favourite old shows you rewatch? I need suggestions!
It’s October and the temperatures and cooling down. I’m enjoying the moment and the last of the fall days. Being able to be outside these last four months has been a lifesaver. Hopefully, October will see lots of backyard fires, blankets and cups of tea under the Big Dipper and the North Star.
Fall is raking leaves, blowing out sprinklers, cleaning out flower pots. I love fall, but it can be short in this part of the world. Winter is on the horizon. I even ordered a new winter coat yesterday. I’m determined to spend more time outside this winter.
Somehow fall also means organizing to me. Watching The Home Edit on Netflix was timely incentive. I’ve tackled the storage area in the basement and gotten rid of the first of the things that need to be recycled or taken to the dump and put together a donation pile.
Just when you think you have nothing left to lose, they come for your dreams.
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden – but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
I’m one of those people that love to read dystopian books, even in the midst of a pandemic. I LOVED this book. There is a reason this book has won or been shortlisted for many awards. Though The Marrow Thieves is a young adult book, it’s also a book for all ages. Set in a near future ravaged by pollution and climate change. it’s the story of group of Indigenous companions who struggle to make their way north while being hunted for their marrow, their very essence, by white people who have lost the ability to dream and their humanity.
Each member of the tight knit group of characters has a coming-to story, a harrowing tale of what they survived before they found the group. By witnessing their stories, we learn how the destruction of the world began and what lengths people will go to save their way of life. Both the hunted and the hunter. A talented writer, Cherie Dimaline has a way with words. With storytelling. With craft.
It is gripping, and bleak, and enlightening. But hopeful. Dark, but somehow full of colour.
“‘Dreams get caught in the webs woven in your bones. That’s where they live, in that marrow there.’”
Miig, The Marrow Thieves
Until next time…
Do you like to organize your spaces? Have you watched The Home Edit? Or read The Marrow Thieves? What did you think?
I love Canadian settings. I think it started when I was a young girl with Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery which was set on the beautiful province of Prince Edward Island. It continued with Gail Bowen‘s Joanne Killbourn mystery series, which remains a favourite of mine, that is set in and around Regina, Saskatchewan. And so many others. For much of my twenties, I read a lot of Canadian literature. A lot.
Canada is more than maple syrup and hockey.
Not knock an often touted cliche, but while a picture can give you a great first impression of the sights, a book gives you the whole picture. A book can describe the tastes, the smells, the sounds, and the texture of a place.
Books can take you to a place you’ve never been, especially in a time when we’re not going anywhere, and if you want to know what life in Canada smells like, tastes like, sounds like, or feels like, there are a no end of books that can bring you here.
I’m going to leave you with four books that are not recent releases, with the exception of Mistakes to Run With, but ones that will give you a glimpse into the corners of Canada that you might not know existed or have read about, and not all of them paint a pretty picture.
I’m a day late because Wednesday was Canada Day, which means Wednesday I thought it was Friday and Thursday I thought it was Monday. Now I have no idea what the actual day is. Welcome to summer!
Back to Canada Day. All I have to say about the 1st of July is I’ve yet to appreciate the whole and very complicated history of my beloved country. I’m listening and learning and reading and I like to think I’m more knowledgable today then I was yesterday.
I live, work, and love on traditional lands referred to as Treaty 4 Territory, which is the traditional lands of the Cree, Ojibwe (OJIB-WE), Saulteaux (SO-TO), Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, and on the homeland of the Metis Nation.
The first day of July was a beautiful summer day. The perfect kind. With sunshine and birdsong and dips in the pool. There was also food. There’s always food. My husband smoked ribs and I made a rhubarb/strawberry/nectarine galette. It all turned out mighty fine.
The only thing missing was ice cream, which I forgot to buy, but we did have whipped cream and that was delicious too. Also, I may have baked it too long as I wasn’t sure how to tell if it was done and the last thing I wanted was to dig in and find a soggy crust at the bottom. But I’ve learned baking takes practice and that practice makes better. Just like writing.
One of my favourite recipe books for desserts is All The Sweet Things by Rene Kohlman who is a Saskatoon chef and food blogger. She’s busy working on a vegetable cookbook. Follow her blog or on Instagram as Sweet Sugar Bean.
12 Canadian First Nations Recipes: an across the country sample of recipes from First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people. The list was put together by Sharon Bond-Hogg and it makes me think I need to take a trip to Kelowna, British Columbia and the Kekuli Cafe! If you’re in the area this summer make sure and check it out.
Until next time…
Have a favourite summer dessert recipe? I’d love it if you’d share!
