When I picked up the latest Lee Child novel, Never Go Back – well, grabbed it out of my wife’s hand as she walked through the door – and opened it up to the first page, after the first sentence I had to pause. ‘He nailed it,’ I thought to myself, ‘the bugger did it […]
I had the great good fortune to receive an advance reader’s copy of Open Secret by Nelson, BC writer Deryn Collier. This is Deryn’s second book, and it has confirmed what I already suspected – this lady is the Louise Penny of the West. Open Secret was a delightful read. Deryn’s stories take place in […]
We can remake the world as we see fit. One of the main joys of writing stories is the ability to rewrite the rules – from giving voice and sensibility to farm animals to reimagining the laws of physics. One minor drawback – we have to follow the new rules we’ve made. It’s called plausible […]
This story is great. No, it’s garbage. Everybody will want to read this. Nobody will get past the first page. I’m going to be rich and famous from this stuff! I might as well give up right now. Sound familiar? I’m convinced that writing fiction is one of the most manic-depressive jobs in existence. Every […]
This story about one prairie daughter’s journey to adulthood through the crucible of World War 2 wrapped me up for three days of a delightfully deep read. It has just about everything I look for in a book – excellent writing, engaging characters, a storyline that pulls you along, and something interesting to learn. I […]