Quintet
Douglas Arthur Brown
Key Porter Books, 2008, $19.95
ISBN 9781552639979

Adrian, Rory, and Cameron are identical triplets summoned home to Cape Breton by the sudden death of their parents. Inseparable in youth, they’ve drifted apart as adults, and after the funeral they agree to keep in touch through journals in which each recounts the steps that led him away from the other two. At every critical step looms the shadow of Talbot, the oldest brother, and the secrets he’s hoarded for a generation.

Douglas Arthur Brown is also the author of the novel A Deadly Harvest; a collection of short fiction, The Komodo Dragon and Other Stories; and two children’s books, The Magic Compass and Archibald's Boo-boo. He lived in Toronto and Copenhagen for many years and now lives in his native Cape Breton.

A Story of Africa: recollections of a Five Year Shift in Kenya
Dick Charlton
Little Fishes Publishing, 2007, $20.00
ISBN 9780973843828

Whether read as a connected account straight through from start to finish, or as separate essays, these lighthearted pages chronicle the adventures of an expatriate engineer with the East African Power and Lighting Co Ltd. (EAP&L).  They recall incidents, observations and involvements with wife, family and colleagues a generation ago, when the world was young and Kenya in its first decade of independence.

Richard Charlton is originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. After five years in Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa, he immigrated to Canada in 1975 with wife June and their three, settling in Dartmouth. Richard is a professional electrical engineer with a variety of extracurricular writing and dramatic productions to his credit, including the Kippernickker Adventure Stories, a collection of children’s books.

Tatamagouche Inheritance
D.C. Clark
The Wild Rose Press, 2008, $10.99
ISBN 1-60154-022-1

In Tatamagouche Inheritance, Michael Cameron and Erin Forbes become romantically involved, but learn to their dismay that one shameful incident involving their grandparents may create an impediment to their budding relationship.  The two are forced to work together in a genealogical search for the truth; as they dig deeper, unknown facts begin to surface about long-buried secrets.  Understanding and commitment grow as the two realize they do not want a repeat of the unhappy decisions made two generations ago. 

DC Clark has worked as a land surveyor, construction inspector, blaster, bulldozer operator, logger, wilderness guide, mineral prospector, farmhand, grocery clerk, and for a greater part of his career as a manager in heavy industry.  For a number of years Dave wrote technical articles for publication in Canadian and American professional magazines, and in newspapers, before turning to fiction. He lives in central Nova Scotia. 

Evidence
Ian Colford
Porcupine’s Quill, April 2008, $22.95
ISBN 978-0889843035

This debut collection of short stories involves Kostandin Bitri, a wanderer who has been uprooted by war from an unnamed eastern European country. As he moves first to Western Europe and then to North America looking for a place to live and for an identity, Bitri observes the societies he restlessly inhabits with an uneasy, distrustful eye.  As an outsider, he witnesses corruption and banality, the dangers of ignorance in a brutal world, the need for caution and disguise. His observations amount to a relentless deconstruction of power relationships: the power of the police over a terrorized population in an authoritarian state, of wealth over poverty in the bourgeois cultures of the West, of men over women, adults over children, lies over truth.

Ian Colford’s work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Event, The Fiddlehead, The Dalhousie Review, Grain, Canadian Fiction Magazine, The Journey Prize Anthology, and others.  Travels to Greece, Portugal, Turkey and Italy have laid a foundation upon which much of his recent fiction is constructed. He lives in Halifax and works as a librarian at Dalhousie University.

Timbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold
Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle
McClelland and Stewart, 2007, $34.99
ISBN 978-0-7710-2646-1

Timbuktu — the name still evokes an exotic, faraway place, even though the city’s glory days are long gone.  Founded in the early 1100s by Tuareg nomads who called their camp “Tin Buktu,” it became, within two centuries, a wealthy metropolis and a nexus of the trans-Saharan trade. Salt from the deep Sahara, gold from Ghana, and money from slave markets made it rich. Timbuktu became a centre of Islamic learning and religion, boasting impressive schools and libraries that attracted scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, Mecca, and Marrakech. The arts flourished and Timbuktu gained near-mythic stature around the world, capturing the imagination of outsiders and ultimately attracting the attention of hostile sovereigns who sacked the city three times and plundered it half a dozen more. Perhaps no other city in the world has been as golden — and as deeply tarnished — as Timbuktu.

Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle are the co-authors of Sable Islandand Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World’s Largest Desert. Marq de Villiers has also written a dozen books on travel, history, and natural history. He has won a Governor General's Award for non fiction, the Evelyn Richardson Prize for non-fiction, and has been shortlisted for both the Julia Child and the James Beard awards.  They live in Eagle Head, Nova Scotia.

A History of Hangings in Nova Scotia
Deanna Foster
Pottersfield Press, 2007, $17.95
ISBN 978 1895900956

Almost as soon as Halifax was settled by the British in 1749, it became a violent place to live, and in attempts to deal with this, public hangings and floggings were a common occurrence for close to a hundred years. Subject to the same legal system as in England, criminals in Halifax were hanged for crimes that ranged from petty theft to gruesome murders. From the original gallows tree at the bottom of George Street to the individual jail hangings in the various communities, citizens were always drawn to a hanging. Some of those included in this book are: the Saladin pirates, one of the bloodiest cases ever brought before a court in Nova Scotia; the hanging of Peter Mailman, who murdered his wife but captivated a reporter; and the trial of William Robinson, who not only murdered his wife but desecrated her body and tried to burn the evidence. Hangings may have been a grisly event, but they managed to captivate large crowds, and are a testament to the prevalent interest in the dark side of history. Issues of deterrence, public opinion, and effectiveness down through the years are explored by the author as she traces the crimes and punishment for murders that prevailed from the very first hanging in the province in 1749 to the last hanging in 1937.

Deanna Foster grew up in Tantallon, Nova Scotia. She completed her BA at Dalhousie University and is now working towards her B.Ed. at Mount St. Vincent University. Although a history class prompted her interest in hangings, she has always had a unique fascination with things deemed morbid or gothic. This is her first book.

Lightning & Blackberries
Joanne Jefferson
Nimbus, 2008, $10.95
ISBN 9781551096544

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Evans is the privileged and naïve only child of prominent New Englanders, part of a group of Planters who settled in Nova Scotia following the deportation of the Acadian people. As a teenager, she is leading a carefree life in the Annapolis Valley, tending to her cows on the family farm, daydreaming by the brook, and resisting her mother’s attempts to refine her manners and marry her off. She thinks nothing will ever change, but a stranger’s arrival at Evans Hall and a chance meeting with a mysterious Acadian girl in the woods nearby turn Elizabeth’s carefree life upside down. And when she learns the truth about the history of the farm she loves so well, she knows nothing will ever be the same.

Joanne Jefferson was born and raised in Halifax and now makes her home in West LaHave, Nova Scotia. Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction writing appear in a variety of Canadian publications. She leads writing workshops for young people at the Tatamagouche Centre and in schools around Nova Scotia. Joanne’s other passions include boating, music, and baseball. Lightning & Blackberries is her first novel.

Beyond Window-Dressing?: Canadian Children's Fantasy at the Millennium
K.V. Johansen
Sybertooth, Inc., 2007, $19.50
ISBN 9780968802458

In the late twentieth century, Canadian children's fantasy had a poor reputation internationally. Was this reputation deserved?  And if so, has the quality of children's fantasy and the climate for its publication improved since that time? After a survey of twentieth-century Canadian children's fantasy, Beyond Window-Dressing? examines these questions through an extensive cross-section of Canadian children's fantasy published between 2000 and 2004. It provides a window onto recent Canadian developments in the genre and insists that fantasy be judged by standards as rigorous as those applied to any other genre of literature.

K.V. Johansen is the author of several YA novels and picture books, as well as the non-fiction book Quests and Kingdoms: An Adult's Guide to Children's Fantasy Literature.  She received the 2004 Frances E. Russell Award for research in children's literature from IBBY Canada. She lives in Sackville, New Brunswick.

Martin Bridge: In High Gear
Jessica Kerrin
Kids Can Press, 2008, $16.95
ISBN 978-1-55453-156-1

Martin Bridge returns for more slice-of-life adventures in the sixth book in this widely-acclaimed chapter book series.  In the first story, Gibson — who is a lot luckier than he deserves to be — is in Martin's group for the science fair project. Everything comes easily to Gibson, while Martin and the rest of the group are working overtime. How far can Gibson's lucky streak go?

In the second story, Martin's new bike is stolen — and he'd only taken one ride! His Great Aunt Laverne, who's visiting, doesn't have a lot of sympathy for Martin. She thinks kids these days are spoiled senseless. But Aunt Laverne makes a suggestion that helps a downcast Martin realize the importance of volunteering his time to help kids who aren't as lucky as he is.

Jessica Scott Kerrin grew up on the prairies and now lives with her family and their pet tortoise in downtown Halifax. They like to share outdoor adventures, including a jungle trek in Costa Rica and, more recently, a sailing tour of Croatia. In addition to writing, Jessica has managed galleries, dance schools and museums, and she has worked with artists, performers and curators.

Falling
Anne Simpson
McClelland & Stewart, 2008, $32.99
ISBN 978-0771080906

On a late summer day along the shores of Nova Scotia, a young woman makes a mistake that will claim her life, while at the other end of the beach her brother, Damian, is unaware that she is drowning.  A year after the accident, Damian and his mother, Ingrid, travel to Niagara Falls to scatter Lisa’s ashes and to visit Ingrid’s estranged brother, once a famous daredevil of the Falls, now blind, and his mentally disabled son. But old wounds and new misunderstandings soon collide. Damian, burdened by guilt, finds solace in an intense relationship with a girl he first glimpses in a tattoo parlour. A runaway with dreams of New York City, Jasmine has her own reasons for wanting to escape the past. Meanwhile, Ingrid, having reluctantly returned to her childhood home, finds herself at odds with her brother and besieged by memories. As the summer progresses, each of them becomes caught in the pull of the past — until an act of recklessness shocks them into a new course for the future.

Anne Simpson’s first novel, Canterbury Beach, was shortlisted for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. She is the author of three books of poetry: Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry; and, most recently, Quick. She has also been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize. Anne Simpson lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Too Safe for Their Own Good
Michael Ungar
McClelland & Stewart, 2007, $22.99
ISBN 9780771087080

Internationally respected social worker and family therapist Michael Ungar tells us why our mania to keep our kids safe is causing us to do the opposite: put them in harm’s way. By continuing to protect them from failure and disappointment, many of our kids are missing out on the “risk-taker’s advantage,” the benefits that come from experiencing manageable amounts of danger. In Too Safe for Their Own Good, Ungar inspires parents to recall their own childhoods and the lessons they learned from being risk-takers and responsibility-seekers, much to the annoyance of their own parents. He offers the support parents need in setting appropriate limits and provides concrete suggestions for allowing children the opportunity to experience the rites of passage that will help them become competent, happy, thriving adults.

Michael Ungar is an internationally recognized expert on resilience in at-risk youth and leads the International Resilience Project that includes researchers in eleven countries. He teaches at the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University and runs a private practice specializing in working with children and adults in mental health and correctional settings. He has lectured extensively on the subject of resilience and is the author of four books and dozens of professional and scholarly articles. Michael Ungar lives in Halifax with his wife and two children.

Wicked Woods: Ghost Stories from Old New Brunswick
Steve Vernon
Nimbus, 2008, $15.95
ISBN 978-1551096667

A new collection of ghost stories from every corner of New Brunswick. Pull up a seat and listen closely-storyteller Steve Vernon has another collection of classic, bone-chilling tales to tell. Steve takes readers from one end of New Brunswick to the other, unearthing dark tales of strange happenings along the way-from the headless ghost that haunts those who pass through Johnville's covered bridge, to the spirit of a murdered man that guards long-buried treasure at Wolf Point. Drawing on both documented stories and legends passed on by word-of-mouth, Steve sets one spooky scene after another with a storyteller's attention to every creepy detail, and just a touch of wry humour. It's as though you're sitting beside him at the campfire, getting goosebumps as each story unfolds.

Steve Vernon is a popular storyteller and author of numerous books, including Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories from Old Nova Scotia. He is the resident fortune teller at Little Mysteries Bookstore in Halifax and participates in the Writers in the Schools program. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.