Rotenberg’s latest novel asks what gives a city its character. Is it the people, the geography, the skyline, the neighbourhoods, the history, or people’s attitudes? Over the course of this novel, Rotenberg suggests that all of these influences are important.

After returning from a trip to England with his estranged 20-year old daughter in tow, former homicide detective Ari Greene strives to rebuild his life in the wake of a scandal. Meanwhile, his daughter Alison struggles with her identity and her possible future as a journalist as she begins to think of Toronto as her new home.

As their lives begin to develop into a recognizable pattern, Greene discovers the dead body of a condo developer. Working together with his former protégé Daniel Kennicott, Greene is thrust into his former role over the course of the murder investigation.

This tense, careful, and well-plotted story is surprisingly timely. At one key moment, a character stops to explain the real civil tension inherent in Rotenberg’s inspired and timely decision to murder a condo developer. As the character explains, in the face for foreign money artificially inflating ownership prices, uninhabited and poorly-constructed buildings, and a dearth of opportunity for the young, the question of what exactly lies at the heart of the city remains a pressing one.

With Heart of the City, Rotenberg succeeds in creating a compelling mystery for readers on both sides of the housing debate, while introducing a compelling, albeit underused, protagonist in Alison. This novel is a light read that sticks with you by asking you to think about how a city provides meaning to residents. In doing so, it surpasses its genre.

Learn more about this book on the Simon and Schuster website.

The post Print Matters: Heart of the City, by Robert Rotenberg appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Until It Fades is the story of Catherine Wright, a single mother and waitress living in small-town America. She’s on her way home from a blind date when she sees a terrible accident. Rather than driving away at top speed or gawking, which are the normal human reactions, she intervenes and saves a man’s life.

She quickly finds out that the man is Brett Madden, a hockey icon and media darling, and from there things spiral out of control. Already weary of the media thanks to a teenage scandal, Catherine tries to hide her identity.

For a time this works, but everyone wants to know about the Good Samaritan who saved Madden’s life — including Madden himself.

Wright’s identity eventually comes to light, and when she meets Madden the two are instantly drawn to each other.

Until It Fades, in other words, is a modern-day Cinderella story with a Canadian twist. Catherine Wright is an everywoman and Brett Madden is cast the ultimate dreamboat. With every new detail, he only becomes more attractive to her. He’s described as utterly flawless, both by the media and by Catherine herself. To top it all off, Brett’s entire family is famous and wealthy beyond belief, with homes in Toronto and all over the US.

In some ways, this made Until It Fades a nice change of pace from the kind of romance tropes of the Taming of The Shrew variety I keep seeing. Stories which force characters who begin the story as enemies to become lovers are getting tedious.

Until It Fades does an excellent job of making the romance believable from the beginning. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel like it was a bit too much. The man’s essentially perfect, and the romantic sparks are there from the beginning. Too many of the obstacles that stop them from becoming a couple are contrived.

Despite her poverty and struggles Catherine is also essentially perfect, aside from her tired flaw of being a woman who believes no man will love her. Thankfully, she doesn’t spend much of her time moping about it, but it’s obvious in every action she takes.

I understand why this is a trope and that many readers are drawn to it, but I also find this cliché to be tiring. I would love to see more heroines whose major flaw has nothing to do with their confidence.
Still, Until It Fades is a good novel for anyone interested in a light read, and I would wholly recommend it to a fan of romance about to visit a beach, to better avoid paying attention to other peoples’ children. The characters may be a little too close to perfect, but they’re still human enough to feel believable. The depiction of small town life was also wonderfully well-realized, encompassing both the good and the bad parts. And when the romance finally happens, it’s incredibly sweet.

The post Print Matters: Until It Fades by K.A. Tucker appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Black Apple is the story of a Blackfoot girl who is taken from her family and delivered to St. Mark’s Residential School for Girls. Renamed Rose Marie by the nuns who run the school, Sinopaki must adapt to the Christian world.

Sinopaki encounters many terrors at St. Mark’s, beginning with the beatings administered by Sister Margaret. Crate describes many real, physical terrors that were heavily documented in residential schools: malnutrition, cramped spaces, rapid spread of disease, and abuse of all kinds.

Others horrors are spiritual, including the ghosts who reveal the school’s gruesome past. These ghosts haunt Sinopaki day and night for years, and over time she’s able to piece together their stories.

What really impressed me about Black Apple was its ability to be honest about the trauma residential schools caused and still make the nuns sympathetic characters. Most of them honestly believe they’re doing the right thing by “civilizing the Indian”. They believe the church is inherently good.

This stuck out to me because often our natural instinct is to demonize abusers, particularly abusers in religious orders. We do this because it’s easier to believe only monstrous people can be abusive, but the truth is much more complicated than that.

I found this approach to residential schools to be a breath of fresh air. A setting like a residential school makes it easy to slip into gratuitous violence, but every moment of physical contact in Black Apple is written with specific intent. Crate doesn’t shy away from these complications. Rather, she encourages the reader to face them. The amount of time given to physical and sexual violence is extremely limited, forcing us to face the true horror of residential schools: the very idea of “civilizing the Indian.” This approach brings the issues Sinopaki is already facing in her mind into the real world.

Sinopaki herself is also a wonderful character, and it was fascinating to watch her grow into a woman. Her journey is riddled with sadness and fear, but her spirit refuses to be crushed. This strength of spirit is what carries her story to a satisfying conclusion, despite the many challenges she faces.

Black Apple is an honest examination of the many issues surrounding Canada’s treatment of indigenous people, and I believe this makes it particularly important in the wake of Canada 150. Our government would rather we forget about residential schools and the lasting impact they’ve had on our indigenous people, but Joan Crate successfully brings these issues to the forefront.

If you’re looking for a powerful book that will make you think deeply about our country’s history, give Black Apple a shot.

The post Print Matters: Black Apple, by Joan Crate appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

With Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration approaching quickly, it becomes increasingly clear that one of the most important ways we define ourselves as Canadians is by the stories we tell, or by striving to be something great.

For Rakuten Kobo, the Emerging Writer Prize supports early-career writers by providing them the freedom to define, and redefine, their worlds and experiences. In addition to a $10,000 cash award, all winners will receive merchandising, marketing and worldwide promotional support from Kobo for the remainder of 2017.

And now, for the winners.

Winner – Literary Fiction

The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake – Knopf Canada

Published in 2016, this first novel by former University of Toronto Japanese materials librarian Lynne Kutsukake follows the post-war life and decisions of 13-year-old Aya Shimamura.

After spending the war years in a Canadian internment camp, Shimamura and her father are faced with a gut-wrenching choice: move east of the Rocky Mountains or go “back” to Japan. Barred from returning home to the West Coast and bitterly grieving the loss of Aya’s mother during internment, Aya’s father signs a form that enables the government to deport them, but war-devastated Tokyo is not much better.

Winner – Non-Fiction

In-Between Days by Teva Harrison – House of Anansi Press
Born in rural Oregon, Teva Harrison is an artist, writer, and cartoonist living in Toronto, Teva’s writing and/or comics have appeared in The Walrus, Quill & Quire, Huffington Post, Carte Blanche, The Humber Literary Review, and The Globe and Mail, and more.

Harrison diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer at age 37. In this brilliant and inspiring graphic memoir, she documents through comic illustration and short personal essays what it means to live with the disease. She confronts with heartbreaking honesty the crises of identity that cancer brings and struggles to reconcile her long-term goals with an uncertain future, balancing the innate sadness of cancer with everyday acts of hope and wonder.

Winner – Genre Fiction

A Keeper’s Truth by Dee Willson – Driven Press

A native of St.Catharines, Ontario, Dee Willson returned to her passion for writing after a 20-year-long career in marketing and advertising. A Keeper’s Truth is her first novel.

Tess thinks she’s going crazy when only she sees the naked man in the crowded café, comatose woman in his arms. The nightmares, the visions: something’s not right. But Tess is entitled to moments of insanity. She’s the daughter of mental illness, suicide, and her husband was just killed in a car accident, leaving her an inept single mom at twenty-six. Then Tess meets Bryce. This is a story that will have you questioning everything you know about the history of mankind, and wondering if somewhere, deep inside, you knew the truth all along.

***

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Emerging Writer Prize is the sense of confidence and community it provides nominees. “It’s nice to be acknowledged as an emerging writer, at any age,” said prize-winner Lynne Kutsukake, with renewed confidence in her process, which relies on taking inspiration from the style and characters she discovers reading other writers.

For non-fiction winner Teva Harrison, the award couldn’t have come as more of a surprise. “It was amazing. My heart is floating in every direction,” Harrison said, already thinking about her upcoming projects. Some of Harrison’s art from In-Between Days will soon be showcased at her first art show, to be held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery this winter, and she is currently working on a virtual reality experience with playwright Jordan Tannahill.

Likewise, genre fiction winner Dee Wilson has already begun to build her own community of peers by reaching out to and befriending her fellow nominees before the event. “The award gives me the confidence as a writer to spend time locked in a room producing a story you believe in,” Wilson said, buoyed by this recognition that “the community feels as confident in your work as you do.”

***

Learn more about the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize from their website.

The post Building a Community at the 2017 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Awards appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

This Halloween, I had the good fortune to be invited to The New Collection’s annual fundraising event, Hush Hush. The New Collection, a branch of Toronto’s Public Library Foundation that caters towards literary scene and networking events for young professionals, funding events and residencies for young authors and artists. Although this year’s event was a Halloween party, and costumes were encouraged, I couldn’t help but be concerned this was going to be a party for the young and stodgy. I was dead wrong, and I’ve never been more happy for it.

I got to the Gladstone branch of the Toronto Public Library at 10PM, and I was surprised to see that there were already at least 200 people there. Groups of people were enjoying the food, the cupcakes, or the candy, having their fortunes told, having professional makeup done for the event, or just hanging out and enjoying the DJ.  Overall, this was a very relaxed event, with young faces everywhere, and everybody was just there to have a good time, meet new people, and enjoy themselves.

Indeed, the variety of people attending was impressive. From physicians, to business owners, to lobbyists, to actors everybody was happy to support the library. For many of the people I spoke to, the public library was a site of nostalgia, and they were overjoyed at the ability to not only give back to the institution, but to be able to see how their money was being used to enhance the collection.

One of the best things about Hush Hush is that although it’s a regular event, it isn’t a regular Halloween party. “It’s a really good vibe and great people, and the decor always transforms the space,” said Andrea McLoughlin, who told me that this was the first Halloween party The New Collection had done since starting the event.

I had the chance to speak a little with David Delaney, co-chair of the event, about why this year’s event was so much fun. “Halloween is really good because people love dressing up,” Delaney said, “but there’s lots of competition. This year, we put together a more memorable party – this party is about raising awareness about what the public library does. The library is an exceptionally under-appreciated cause.”

Indeed it is. Toronto’s public library system is among the busiest in the world, and The New Collection has done a bang-up job of drawing people’s attention to what makes it special. If you’re looking for a cause to support that brings together excellent people with exciting fun, look no further than The New Collection, a community where support for reading, writing and the arts is married with the best the city can offer in fun.

For more on Hush Hush 2015, visit the website.

The post Hush Hush 2015 – Halloween Party at the Public Library appeared first on Toronto Guardian.