by prfire | May 13, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
Author Lauren Carter doesn’t waste any time drawing you into the complicated, compelling and uncomfortably familiar lives of her characters. From the first page, you’re immersed in the moving landscape of their existence, but you’re not immersed in a way that...
by prfire | Apr 21, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
Naming the Shadows, Sharon Berg’s collection of stories, is a fascinating exploration of diverse subjects, from uncovering family secrets and probing social taboos, to examining career choices and overcoming personal trauma. The stories are character driven, and...
by prfire | Apr 9, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Poetry
Growing up in rural Ontario, I was surrounded by parents and siblings but gravitated to the elderly, a grandmother and aunts and uncles, but especially the women, fascinated by the stories they had to tell, awed by the humour and wisdom they imparted. When I...
by prfire | Mar 26, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction
In Lori Cayer’s fourth book of poetry, Mrs Romanov, she beautifully crafts an intimate and passionate interior life for Alexandra Feodorovna, the last tsarina of Imperial Russia. Perhaps because we are so familiar with her story–Feodorovna, her...
by prfire | Mar 16, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Poetry
People and landscapes inhabit our memory but when we want to recall them it can be difficult; we must either pull at them or ask someone, or rely on written records. And it is so with family. What do we remember of our grandmothers and grandfathers or of our...
by prfire | Feb 28, 2020 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
In the title poem of her newest collection, This White Nest, Frances Boyle poses the question “What shines?” This is the question that sits with the reader as they make their way through the poems, but others soon weave their way in, too. In “Tutelage,”...
