Beverley Slopen Literary Agency spine 24mm Unconfirmed
When a man is found stabbed and floating beneath the cliffs of the Newfoundland coast, the small outpost of Hampden is swept up in a storm of suspicion and paranoia. Grief-stricken and still struggling to cope with the death of one of their own a year earlier, the troubled Now family are among the first to be suspected of the killing. As the mystery around the murdered man unfolds, the lies spiral, the stakes rise and the once close-knit town becomes a prison that no one can escape. ‘One of the very best literary novels I have read in years’ RON RASH, AUTHOR OF SERENA
JOSEPH BOYDEN, AUTHOR OF THREE DAY ROAD
ISBN 978-1-78689-060-3
CATHERINE CHANTER
‘One of Canada’s finest writers . . . I can’t recommend this book highly enough’
9 781786 890603 £8.99 Cover design by Anna Morrison Cover photo © Getty/Shutterstock
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10/04/2017 12:39
January 2018
Non-Fiction
Joe Berridge Perfect City
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Joe Berridge is one of the world’s most experienced planners. He grew up in a small country town in England. Reading Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of Great American Cities at university he knew he had to get to the big city, where he has worked with delight ever since. Advance Praise for Perfect City: “There is nobody better to help us build a more perfect city than Joe Berridge. Based on decades of experience and hands-on work in cities across the world, his book is the playbook for building great cities. Read it if you want to help build a great city or just live in one that is more perfect for you.”
Richard Florida, University of Toronto, Author Rise of the Creative Class
The Sutherland House N.Am Rights 2019 www.slopenagency.com
oe Berridge travels the world on an audacious quest for the perfect city. He loves cities and takes us on a tour of their successes and failures, highs and lows, with a wealth of experience, insider knowledge, an understanding of historical and social context, and an unwavering eye on the future. We meet the city – and we meet the people who make it work. We know what we want in our cities, yet the complexity of city making lacks any precise formula. Cities thrive and fail partly because of the amazing people who give them energy but also from some hidden DNA that Berridge explores with insight and relish. We revel in the irrepressible energy of New York as we watch the explosive rise of Shanghai on its goal to become the city of the 21st century. The intensely cerebral Singapore strikes a unique path, yet does it have any lessons for its messier, disorganized urban peers? We witness the near death of Manchester and Belfast and meet the extraordinary people who changed those cities’ fate. Berridge is intrigued by London’s continuing success, but worries it may have received a fatal blow from Brexit – reminiscent of the impact of separatism on Montreal. Politics and leadership are as important as architecture and planning. Will soaring, unchecked real estate prices sink Sydney, San Francisco and Vancouver? And then there is Toronto, rising seemingly by accident to the top rank of world cities, whose key to success may well be its remarkable welcoming of newcomers, the critical ingredient for any dynamic city. Great cities are made by great people. Berridge has worked in them all and got to know them from the inside. We meet everyone, from Donald Trump to Prince Charles, to inspiring city mayors and managers, to the energetic entrepreneurs and activists in those cities’ poorest neighbourhoods. It’s these people – the politicians and artists, the citizens and businessmen – who have to work together to make the perfect city. How do you best do that – and what do you do when they have been killing each other? What is the chemistry of the perfect city?
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
History
Tim Brook Vermeer’s Hat
The 17th Century and the Dawn of the Global World
“Vermeer’s Hat ... provides not only valuable historical insight but also enthralling intellectual entertainment.” “a spellbinding book…mind-expanding.”
The Times, UK
“Brook is a wonderful storyteller... I doubt I will read a better book this year.” The Telegraph, UK
“Timothy Brook is one of those historians who can tell world history like an adventure novel and economic history like a crime novel...After reading [this] one sees Vermeer’s world differently. And one’s own too.” Spiegel, Germany
“..provides…not only valuable historical insight but also enthralling intellectual entertainment.” The Washington Post
Bloomsbury US 2008 Chungrim Korea 2008 Edition Tiamat Germany 2009 Europa Konyvkiado Hungary 2009 Gradiva Portugal 2011 Iwanami Japan 2010 Kalima Arabic 2010 Payot & Rivages France 2009 Penguin Canada 2008 Profile UK 2008 Record Brazil 2009 Yuan-Liou Taiwan 2009 Wenhui Press China 2009 Wereldbibliotheek Netherlands 2010 Einaudi Italy 2015 Tusquets Spain 2019
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Michael Dirda, Washington Post
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he story opens in Vermeer’s studio in Delft with his stunning portrait, Officer and Laughing Girl. This intimate tableau, in which the officer wears an extravagant hat of beaver felt, subtly captures the widening world. Beaver fur from northern Canada financed voyages of the explorers looking for a route to the riches of China. Lust for luxury goods drove expansion. Pursuing beaver pelts, Champlain introduced his gun, the arquebus in 1609, and it had a profound and bloody impact on North America’s indigenous peoples. The silken wrap of Paolo’s robe, and Wen’s silver vase reveal much about east-west commerce at the time. The craving for porcelain spawned as much bloodshed as beauty. Astoundingly, tobacco and the spread of smoking is the great unintended consequence of North American discovery. It spread to Asia within decades of North American discovery, thanks to the seeds carried by the sailors. Here also are tales foreshadowing religious conflict. Globalization in cultural, legal, political, and moral spheres is very much with us, but these trail the economic web which began in the 17th Century. Timothy Brook is the author or editor of 12 books on China, including Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement and Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952. He is editor of a six volume series on China published by Harvard University Press. He is currently Professor of History at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His recent book decodes the secrets of a Chinese map at Bodleian Library, known as the Selden Map (from Bloomsbury, Profile, Anansi.) Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
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Aileen Burford-Mason, author of the acclaimed bestseller, Eat Well Age Better, (Dundurn Press, Canada) is an immunologist, cell biologist and an orthomolecular nutritionist – a specialized field of nutrition that uses diet and vitamins, minerals and amino acids and other substances naturally present in the body to treat and prevent disease. She graduated from University College, Dublin and received a Ph.D. in immunology in the UK. She is former director of a cancer research laboratory at Toronto General Hospital, and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Currently she teaches a continuing medical education course on the use of diet and nutritional supplements in clinical practice across Canada. 6/27/17 11:16 AM
Learn more at: www.aileenburfordmason.ca
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his book will change the way you think about food, nutrition, and how to feed the brain for optimum efficiency. In short, it will change your life. Aileen Burford-Mason, who earned a Ph.D. in immunology, writes with exquisite clarity about advances in the science of the brain and its nutritional needs. “The brain,” she says, “is a complex, hard-working organ and it needs ten times the nutrition of any other organ. Most people are under-performing because their brains are under-nourished.” The brain issues she discusses include ADD, depression, brain trauma, concussion and of course, the big one--dementia. “Worldwide, dementia now affects 36 million people and these numbers will skyrocket as populations age. However, scientists now admit that dementia is not an inevitable part of the aging process. It’s a lifestyle disease, and poor nutrition and lack of exercise are the major risk factors.” The Healthy Brain outlines a life-long program that begins with pregnancy, childhood and adolescence, and moves through our working years and old age. In The Healthy Brain, she suggests dietary changes and appropriate supplements for optimal brainpower at any age. Smart, informative, reassuring and clear, you will want to keep this book close and discuss its suggestions for diet, exercise and supplements with your doctor.
Patrick Crean Books HarperCollins Canada 2018 Klett-Cotta Germany 2018 Yuan Liou Taiwan 2019
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Martyn Burke Boléro: The Book
T Martyn Burke is an award-winning film maker and writer. In 2012, his documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat won a Peabody and was short-listed for an Academy Award. In 2015, he received the Auteur Award from the International Press Academy. Previous recipients include Guillermo del Toro, Baz Luhrmann and George Clooney.
Praise for Music For Love or War: “Music for Love or War is slashand-burn funny, but also unexpectedly touching and wise. Few writers can take you in one breath from the hills of Afghanistan to the gates of the Playboy mansion, and make you believe every crazy word.” Carl Hiaasen
“A whirlwind story, equally hilarious and heartbreaking, about the various kinds of love and war -and quite unlike any novel you’re likely to read.”
he once-famous, now scandal-ravaged orchestra conductor Arturo Romero (Romeo, to the New York tabloids) is reduced to conducting a makeshift collection of musicians meant to bring the gloss of culture to an Indian gambling casino. The casino was created by “former white guys” who are members of the mythical “once-mighty Onanduga nation” as a way to get in on the fortunes of the Indian gambling business. Romero’s story is told through the eyes of Jesse, the glorified baby-sitter of the wildly tormented conductor. But Romero has another, hidden reason drawing him to the Falls. With the help of his caustic parrot Banshee, Romero has come to win back his ex-lover Sophia. Sophia’s erotic demands and wild love making to the pulsating rhythms of Ravel’s Boléro still careen through Romero’s dreams. A decade after their scandalous affair, Sophia is a judge in Niagara Falls and she is on the verge of jailing Romero for his antics. Behind Romero’s romantic quest looms the awesome power of the casino’s mysterious Wall Street investors, who are using the casino’s losses as a test market for ruinous financial instruments. But as the financial edifice falters, and the music and love affairs swirl, the spectre of vast money shudders like an avalanche. What undoes it all is the parrot Banshee, whose coded knowledge holds the secret to what each of the characters has been seeking. And Jessie is witness to it all, stealing our hearts with his grace, compassion and insight. In this layered novel, with its sly allusions and soaring rhythms, Martyn Burke captures the ruptures in society and the turmoil in America.
Bookgasm Blog
Manuscript Available
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Martyn Burke Music for Love or War
C
omic ironies and absurdities abound in this love story set against the thunderous clash of civilizations.
Praise for Music For Love or War “Music for Love or War is slashand-burn funny, but also unexpectedly touching and wise. Few writers can take you in one breath from the hills of Afghanistan to the gates of the Playboy mansion, and make you believe every crazy word.” Carl Hiaasen
“A glorious globetrotting epic spanning class, race, and ethical borders. Burke’s personal history as a Hollywood filmmaker and combat-zone documentarian makes this book seem less written than lived...Burke is a marvel. Read this book.”
Craig Davidson, author of Giller nominated Cataract City
“A whirlwind story, equally hilarious and heartbreaking, about the various kinds of love and war -and quite unlike any novel you’re likely to read.”
Bookgasm Blog
“Gripping, hilarious, otherwordly, brutal, heartbreaking. A transcentental tale of love and hope for a post-911 world.”
Jon Steele
Cormorant CAN 2015 Simon & Schuster US 2017
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In the blistered landscape of Afghanistan, a small unit of US soldiers is dependent on the Internet connection to Constance, a Hollywood psychic who provides advice on tactics in love and war. Two men in particular seek her out. Danny, a sniper who has been up close and personal with his Taliban prey, tortures them by blaring the music of Liberace from the mountain peaks. He also displays a giant portrait of Liberace prancing in a white sequined costume, bringing a bizarre bit of Las Vegas to the Afghan killing fields, and enraging the Taliban. Danny’s obsession is finding his high school sweetheart Ariana whose terrorist father married her off to a brutal warlord. Can Constance help? His friend Hank has fled to the Afghan war to distance himself from the decadent world of Hollywood which has swallowed his beloved in its rapacious drug and celebrity culture. Constance receives them when they use their home-leave to visit her. This also is the story of a friendship forged through trials of love and danger. Will Hank and Danny survive and prevail? Can they rescue the women they love? Music For Love or War is a soaring love story and a literary tour-de-force. Martyn Burke knows war-riddled Afghanistan where he has filmed documentaries. He knows Los Angeles where he lives and works. And he knows about terrorist families based in multi-cultural Toronto, his second home. In 2012, his feature documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat won a Peabody and was short-listed for an Academy Award. He is now writing a pilot for an HBO mini-series based on his 1984 novel The Commissar’s Report. In 2015, Martyn received the Auteur Award from the International Press Academy. Previous recipients include Guillermo del Toro, Baz Luhrmann and George Clooney. Click here for The International Press Academy’s video highlighting Martyn’s career Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Laurie Channer Small Dead Things
A gripping plot, surprising twists, depth of character, and insights on animal behavior - including humans. Laurie Channer is a novelist and screenwriter in Toronto. Her debut novel Godblog (Napoleon Books/ Dark Star) has been optioned for film. She has won awards for her short stories and works for the Writers Guild of Canada. Learn more at: www.lauriechanner.com
S
andy Stoppard fears nothing except intimacy. And she can’t let go of loose ends. Although the accused serial killer known as the Riverside Basher is in custody, and her colleagues at the Providence, Rhode Island police department are satisfied they have their man, there are details that don’t make sense to her. She begins to delve into the accused’s tortured past. Her discoveries lead her to an abyss with no backup. At the same time, Sandy remains obsessed about a previous case involving the murder of a little girl. She secretly searches dumpsters, landfills, and marshlands for the missing body parts of 10-year-old Madison Porter in an attempt to give the family peace. Grisly aspects of both cases don’t torment Sandy, whose own childhood bruises are a bridge to life’s dark side. Yet, Sandy allows her emotional armour to be peirced by her nephews when she joins them in their school project following life in a loon nest via webcam. In a loop of fate, the loon nest leads Sandy to a breakthrough in her former kidnap case, and to the smart, sexy bird biologist Hamlet Mar who is responsible for the webcam project. The twists spiral rapidly with Hamlet Mar’s suspicious connection to a newly-abducted child. Laurie Channer reserves her most terrifying twist for the end when the real Riverside Basher is revealed. In her skillful rendering, this police procedural soars beyond genre to become a spellbinding tale layered with fascinating detail and psychological insight.
Manuscript Available
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Historical Fiction
Jill Downie The Fashion Artist
N Jill Downie is the author of nine novels and two biographies that have been widely published and translated. The Raven and the Glass, Turn of the Century, Angel in Babylon and Dark Liaisons are historical fiction. Her mysteries include Daggers and Men’s Smiles and Blood Will Out. Praise for her previous books: “Downie’s experience with historical novels…and her theatre skills stand her in good stead.” The Globe and Mail
“Fascinating depths to both the novel and the mystery that has been written about it.” The Star Phoenix
“In the styling of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayer.” Cozy Mystery Book Reviews
ew York, 1904: Ariella Aleksandrov is a young seamstress from the tenement district when her talent for drawing catches the eye of John Cornish at Pinkerton Detective Agency. He has just the job for her: infiltrate the high-fashion world of the beautiful Marquise Harriet de Brisson and collect incriminating evidence against her for an unnamed adversary. Harriet has returned to New York after her aristocratic husband eroded her inheritance and deprived her of her little son. To replenish her coffers and gain custody of her child, she has launched Marquise Designs, a couture fashion house for glittering socialites. Ariella impresses the Marquise with her quick mind and skill as a fashion artist. She becomes Harriet’s trusted personal assistant and must navigate the rarefied world of luxury and larceny. As her affection for the Marquise blooms, Ariella reveals all to her employer. But Ariella must maintain her link with Pinkerton if she is to help Harriet determine who in her circle is working against her. It is a high stakes gambit for a Jewish girl in a cutthroat world of greed and ambition involving bankers, financiers, gamblers, servants, and denizens of New York’s demi-monde. Ariella and Harriet are confronted with murder, blackmail, and a mud bed of shifting loyalties. Jill Downie creates a seductive portrait of New York at the turn of the 20th Century infused with the spirit of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence.
“A masterpiece of restoration to delight and inspire.”
June Callwood
“Jill Downie...brings a remarkable woman and her era to full life and colour.” Marian Fowler
Manuscript Available
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Stephanie Earp This Year’s Girl
C Advance Praise for This Year’s Girl: “Opening this novel feels like cracking a bottle of bubbly with a girlfriend who is ready to confess her juiciest secrets to you. It’s a funny, sexy, compelling and pleasurable read. I couldn’t put it down.” Jill Barber, author of Music is for Everyone.
“Stephanie Earp’s writing is sharp and decisive, witty and insightful. She brings a keen eye to the seemingly shallow world of pop music and shows us the dangers of getting what we think we want.” Tanis Rideout, author of Above All Things
helsea Hamilton and her boyfriend Zach set out from Boston and drive west across the continent to Los Angeles in their brave adventure to become recording stars. Jamie is the ambitious one, Chelsea is the artist—the sensitive poet/songwriter with a beautiful voice. They need each other. So Chelsea thought. But shortly after their arrival Zach hooks up with a popular band and strands Chelsea on her own in L.A.—friendless, with no car, and little money. A resilient spirit, Chelsea gets work with a catering company, falls in with a group of witty young comedians, and nabs a job that is a portal to the world of the glittering elite inhabiting crystal castles in the Hollywood hills. The job? Chelsea becomes a nanny to the seven-year-old daughter of pop superstar Cat Morgan. Chelsea’s new friends had warned her—once you live in a fortress of luxury, you will be “one of the disappeared.” The work is enjoyable, Cat is generous with her clothes and encouragement, and Cat’s mercurial husband Daniel has a recording studio in the basement. As Chelsea and Daniel begin to work together, she discovers her ambition, her musical voice, and a secret self, darker and crueler than she knew. The plot of the novel is ripped from the tabloids and is replete with details usually reserved for insiders. Behind the veneer is a deeper exploration of betrayal, celebrity, and artistic ambition. As notoriety threatens to overwhelm Chelsea, she has to decide how to live her life.
Manuscript Available
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Toronto-born Stephanie Earp studied at Berklee College of Music and later, Queen’s University, Kingston. She was a staff writer at TV Guide Canada and TV columnist for Huffington Post. Her work has appeared in magazines including Elle Canada and Canadian Living, and her poetry has been featured in journals such as The Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead and Room. In her quest to quit smoking, Stephanie became an accomplished and creative knitter. She lives in Montreal with her husband and daughter.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
History
Modris Eksteins Solar Dance
Van Gogh, Forgery, and the Eclipse of Certainty
T Winner, $40,000 B.C Award for NonFiction 2013 Finalist, Hilary Weston Prize for NonFiction 2012
“Mr. Eksteins has a knack for pinpointing moments in the rise of Modernism that expose the deep social forces that have shaped our world... Solar Dance conveys the heady atmosphere that made Berlin the first European capital to embrace the transforming potential of art in a secular age.” Wall Street Journal
“Subtle and engaging…Eksteins tells his story in a suitably looping and layered manner, with many darts and artful reverses, suing a range of knowledge and allusion reminiscent of his 1989 masterpiece, Rites of Spring.” Globe and Mail
“Eksteins is a major historian and Solar Dance, like everything he writes, deserves a wide and attentive readership.” National Post “A marvellous, brilliant book, one that gives a clearer undersatnding of our cultural moment than just about anything published in ages.” Literary Review of Canada Harvard UP April 2012 Knopf Canada Feb 2012 Zysk Poland 2013
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he 19th century was the century of certainty – of Marx, Darwin, Wagner; it was the century of expansion and empire. It believed that there was a line to be drawn between the subject and the object. It believed in category. The 20th Century was the century of doubt – of Marcel Duchamp, Werner Heisenberg, and Monty Python; it was the century of contraction and decolonization. It disrupted all category. A man whose spirit straddled the two ages was Vincent van Gogh. Repudiated in his own time, he became the most loved and expensive artist of the 20th Century. He was the great synthesizer who captured in his art the exhilaration of life but also its fragility and tragedy. Modris Eksteins, whose subject is the 20th century, approaches the era through the lens of the sensational trial of a Berlin art dealer Otto Wacker and his role in the forgery of 33 Van Gogh paintings. In 1925, Wacker began releasing these hitherto unknown works which he cleverly had authenticated by experts. Through the progress of this drama Van Gogh’s commercial value rocketed skyward. Doubt and disaster also were crucial to Van Gogh’s posthumous success-- his own madness and suicidal end, and the subsequent near-destruction of European civilization in fratricidal war. In the Wacker-Van Gogh story, with its cast of characters who both delight and frighten us, is the story of Weimar Germany, the rise of Hitler and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In this thrilling book, Modris Eksteins illuminates the major themes of the modern world where a culture of vitality, life, and art has overwhelmed one of authority, form, and law.
Modris Eksteins is the author of acclaimed books on modernism, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age and Walking Since Daybreak: A story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of Our Century. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Mystery Series
Howard Engel Grand Master of Mystery Dr. Zeckerman, Grantham’s wealthy psychiatrist, loses a patient to suicide. Benny suspects homicide.
Captivating insights, beautiful phrases, lovable characters and grisly crimes spill effortlessly from Howard Engel’s sleeve. His classic series of Benny Cooperman mysteries and two historical crime novels have won prizes and are widely translated. In 2014 he was named the Grand Master of Canadian mystery writers. Best of all, there is a new Engel novel, City of Fallen Angels, set in 1940’s Hollywood. The rabbi and the president of Grantham’s synagogue hire Benny when a lawyer absconds with the life savings of the congregation.
The local crime boss wants Benny to find out who is trying to kill him, and Benny can’t refuse.
Did heiress Gloria Warren collude in her own kidnapping? Where is the money? Benny, the Mob, the cops and Gloria want to know.
Benny mixes with Grantham’s elite who buy, trade and steal paintings -and also murder.
Vanessa Moss, the sexy siren in the executive suite, hires Benny to protect her. He gets more trouble than he expected.
A Hollywood movie crew is shooting more than film at Niagara Falls.
Benny’s environmental anxieties fester when a trucker with hazardous cargo is murdered.
Benny suffers a vicious blow to the head and is diagnosed with a rare condition, alexia sine agraphia. No longer having the ability to read, Benny must unmask his assailant.
Benny is awash in black-flies, cults, and murder in the Canadian wilderness, while tracking a celebrity evangelist.
An old woman whose estate is plundered leads Benny to corrupt lawyers and intrigue at a TV news station.
An old friend pleads for Benny’s help just as he’s on the verge of retirement. Her husband Jake went missing along with their life savings.
CBC TV Film
CBC TV Film
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Terry Fallis One Brother Shy
O “One Brother Shy is a two-for-one flight of invention, full of hilarious one-liners. A compelling and surprising tale about the importance and inspiration of family is twinned with a rich portrait of characters in keenly observed social contexts...Terry Fallis has written another fast-paced, incisive, and wry novel.”
Gary Barwin, Author, Yiddish for Pirates
“Mark Twain once observed that the “secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.” In One Brother Shy, Terry Fallis locates this secret source in a very moving yet often funny story...In so doing, the author marries joy with sorrow. The result is a wonderful, powerful tale of pain and redemption.” Joseph Kertes, Author, The Afterlife of Stars
“For anyone interested in searching for family and healing from traumatic events, Fallis mines a wealth of touching and hilarious treasures, in his giggle-worthy way.” Winnipeg Free Press
PenguinRandomHouse Canada Summer 2017
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ttawa software engineer, Alex MacAskill, 25, is a painfully and chronically shy man whose once bright future was seriously dimmed by an incident in high school. It was not talked about, and it is known only by the family code name “Gabriel.” Outwardly reticent, and desperate to escape notice, Alex sustains a rich, thoughtful and witty inner dialogue that helps him cope. He never knew his father, not even his name. He was raised by a single mother, Lee MacAskill, whose battle with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is nearing its end as the novel opens. When she dies, an envelope left for Alex reveals a secret that instantly changes his life and sets him on a search for the identical twin brother he never knew he had. Eventually reunited with his twin, Matthew Paterson, a high-flying, charismatic entrepreneur living in London, England, they piece together shreds of evidence, including an obscure tattoo linked to the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, to try to find the father neither of them knew. Their travels take them to Moscow only to discover their father was hiding in plain sight back in London, where he secretly kept tabs on the twin sons. The nature of his work which prevented him from becoming involved in their lives is an important feature of the plot. An initially rocky but ultimately happy reunion of father and sons leaves Alex with one final task. He tells Matthew about “Gabriel.” Matthew insists they both fly back to Ottawa to confront “Gabriel” and set Alex on the path to the person he should have become—as dictated by his genetic code. It is time to bring Alex’s vital and vibrant inner voice out into the open. It is also time for him to pursue a budding romance with a fiery work colleague that weaves its way through Alex’s narrative. One Brother Shy is a funny, poignant story of identical twins separated at birth, Cold War echoes, the strength of family ties, and the healing power of humour. Terry Fallis is a best selling author who has an identical twin brother, Tim Fallis. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Terry Fallis Poles Apart
H
ail, Gender Warriors! Be prepared to submit to the beguiling spell of Poles Apart. Humor is the best option for the serious topics of feminist aspirations and male confusion and rage.
“Quite possibly the most fun you can ever have while reading about the struggle for equality. Light-hearted, wickedly funny and surprisingly touching, this novel lights up the lovability of feminism and its defenders.”
Michele Landberg
“Fallis employs an easygoing yet compelling writing style ... So what’s in a name? When it’s Terry Fallis, you know it means a good book.”
National Post
“Terry Fallis writes with a light touch and fine sense of the inherent humanity of humour, while still addressing one of the biggest questions we all have to face: Who are you? Who are you really?”
Will Ferguson , author of 419, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Gently satirical and intelligently frothy, Up and Down achieves a delightful weightlessness as transporting as the space voyage it deals with.” Andrew Pyper, bestselling author of The Demonologist
McClelland/Random House CAN 2015
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Everett Kane is a darling – a man who is a committed feminist. His strong mother, CEO of a Fortune 500 company, begs Ev not to tell his girlfriends. It is the reason, she says, that Ev is still single at 37. (What? Are male feminists not sexy?) Ev’s father, Billy Kane, a former autoworker on the line at Ford, is a stubborn throwback about a women’s place –i.e. firmly in the home. His attitude drove Ev’s mother to depart. Ev has suffered male guilt ever since. The Kane family comes together when Billy, now retired to Florida, is debilitated by a stroke. Ev, a free-lance writer, moves south (with his mother’s financial support) to help his father through rehab. In the same hospital, Ev meets his idol from his days as a student activist for women’s rights, the formidable feminist leader, Beverley Tanner. Warm, funny, and brilliant, Bev and Ev develop a special bond. Meanwhile, below Ev’s rental apartment, an “upscale” strip joint moves in. Longing to rekindle the idealism of his youth, Ev secretly starts a feminist blog, Eve of Equality, which rallies feminists, and has the misfortune to go viral. Ev’s cloaked attacks on the strip club anger the dancers, his mother who had a real estate deal with the owner, and the club’s owner, who brings dangerous, mob-style “heat” to the battle. Ev’s male identity is about to be revealed, potentially unleashing the fury of his feminist fans. Worse, his secret life as a feminist blogger thwarts his blossoming romantic passion for the young woman lawyer representing the strip mogul. Terry Fallis is the author of four previous, bestselling, hilarious novels that have won distinguished literary awards and been adapted for a TV mini-series and a stage musical. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Terry Fallis No Relation Winner of the Leacock Medal for Humor
N Praise for No Relation: “Terry Fallis writes with a light touch and fine sense of the inherent humanity of humour, while still addressing one of the biggest questions we all have to face: Who are you? Who are you really?”
Will Ferguson , author of 419, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Born of a cheerful mood and a clever mind, Terry Fallis’s No Relation is an endearing book with a big heart.”
Trevor Cole, author of Practical Jean, winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
“Fallis employs an easygoing yet compelling writing style ... So what’s in a name? When it’s Terry Fallis, you know it means a good book.”
National Post
o Relation by Terry Fallis is the story of a man who believes his name has blighted his life and thwarted his ambitions. His name? Earnest Hemmingway—spelled differently from that the iconic Ernest Hemingway, but laughable all the same. Life has been good for Hem, a middle-aged copywriter at a New York ad agency. He has had the same job for 20 years, a live-in girlfriend, and a great apartment. But as a writer, Hem believes his family name, bestowed on four generations of Earnest Hemmingways, has blocked him from his destiny as a great novelist. Hem’s cozy world shatters on a single day when he loses his wallet, his girlfriend and his job. His humiliating melt down while he tries to renew his driver’s license, which goes viral on YouTube, is the final blow. Hem’s father, however, sees it as a perfect time for his son to return to Chicago and take the helm of Hemmingwear, the storied underwear manufacturer led by three previous generations of “Earnests.” Hem has other plans. Besides, his younger sister is eager to take the job—if she can convince their misogynist father. Hem and his sister team up to expose traitors and foil a hostile takeover. Hem, meanwhile, assembles the sweetest support group this side of Freud--composed of people burdened with famous names. It allows Fallis to flirt with looping comic scenes while addressing serious issues of identity and the weight of expectations. It is a funny, endearing novel crafted by a master.
McClelland/Random House CAN 2014 Shui- Ling Taiwan 2015
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Terry Fallis lives in Toronto where he works for a communications company. His four novels, The Best Laid Plans, The High Road, Up and Down and No Relation are each major bestsellers in Canada and are attracting a growing number of readers abroad. One secret of his success—free podcasts of the novels, chapter by chapter, available on iTunes. To see the book trailer, click here. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Praise for Terry Fallis
“Mark Twain once observed that the “secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.” In One Brother Shy, Terry Fallis locates this secret source in a very moving yet often funny story about a young man’s search for lost family, lost identity, lost confidence and lost time. The result is a wonderful, powerful tale of pain and redemption.”
Joseph Kertes, author of The Afterlife of Stars
“One Brother Shy is life-affirming and an absolute joy to read.”
Susan Juby,
“One Brother Shy is a two-for-one flight of invention, full of hilarious one-liners. Terry Fallis has written another fastpaced, incisive, and wry novel that doesn’t shy away from the enjoyably genuine and the genuinely human.”
Gary Barwin, author of Yiddish for Pirates
“One Brother Shy is another wonderful example of the great gift of Terry Fallis: To make us laugh just enough we don’t realize we’re also learning. My only complaint with his novels is that he can’t write them as quickly as I can devour them.”
Steve Patterson, CBC Radio
“Light-hearted, wickedly funny and surprisingly touching, [Poles Apart] lights up the lovability of feminism and its defenders.”
Michele Landsberg
Poles Apart:“Terry Fallis writes just about the tidiest romantic comedic novels you can find on Earth.”
The Globe and Mail
No Relation: “Terry Fallis writes with a light touch and fine sense of the inherent humanity of humour, while still addressing one of the biggest questions we all have to face: Who are you? Who are you really?” Will Ferguson , author of 419, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Born of a cheerful mood and a clever mind, Terry Fallis’s No Relation is an endearing book with a big heart.” Trevor Cole, author of Practical Jean, winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
“Terry Fallis has done it again. Up and Down is another hilarious page-turner that also packs an emotional punch.” Ali Velshi
“Up and Down kept me smiling, made me laugh out loud, and occasionally moved me to tears.”
The National Post
One Brother Shy
Penguin Random House Canada Summer 2017 www.slopenagency.com
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Fiction
Joanna Goodman The Home for Unwanted Girls
Philomena meets Orphan Train
Praise for The Finishing School: “This book is addictive because of the mystery it explores...but what’s also notable is the deftness with which Goodman presents the complicated, passionate nature of friendships during formative years, as well as the fascinating and formidable depths people will go to in order to get what they want.” The Globe and Mail Goodman’s fourth novel craftily “depicts a mystery hidden for decades under the veil of boardingschool tradition and secret societies. Through the lens of Kersti’s research, Goodman unravels a web of lies intertwining the welldeveloped characters that cross Kersti’s path.” Booklist
HarperCollins US 2018 Presses de la Cité France 2018 Saint-Jean Quebec 2018
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I
n this triumphant love story, the lives of two young people are beset by conflicts of class and culture in 1950’s Quebec.
Maggie is the daughter of Wellington Hughes, the “Anglo” who runs a seed business selling mostly to the French-Canadian farmers in the Eastern townships near Montreal. Her mother Hortense is a FrenchCanadian who refuses to speak English, but who shares her husband’s ambitions that her children should prosper in the higher status Anglo world. Gabriel Phénix, the boy from the next farm, poor and orphaned, captures Maggie’s heart. When Maggie becomes pregnant at 15, either because of a rape or her love affair with Gabriel, she suffers the full tyranny inflicted by the regime and the Catholic Church. Her baby is taken from her and either sold by the nuns to an American family, or worse, placed in an institution and declared mentally impaired. The government paid more money for wards of hospitals than orphanages. (Based on shockingly true situations in Quebec in the 1950’s, the theft of her child is similar in the experience of Ireland’s Philomena Lee.) We follow Maggie’s desperate quest to find her daughter Elodie, and Elodie’s painful loss of the family she deserves. Joanna Goodman, whose grandfather was a seed man, draws on the conflicting allegiances of her own Quebecois family for this tale that is specific to its place and times and universal in its themes. The daughter of a French-Canadian mother and the wife of a French-Canadian man, Joanna is bi-lingual and multi-cultural. Occasionally, she wishes she were firmly rooted in only one identity. Joanna Goodman is the author of four acclaimed novels including the best-selling novel, The Finishing School (HarperCollins). She lives in Toronto with her two children and her husband where they operate upscale retail linen shops Au Lit. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Thriller
Joanna Goodman The Finishing School
“Suspenseful….If your guiltypleasure reads include boarding schools, secret societies, murder, and scandal, this one’s for you.” Kirkus
“The Finishing School plunges the reader headfirst into a fast-paced, nail-biting mystery that also manages to explore friendship, love, adolescence, family and motherhood. By the time you reach the unexpected ending, you’ll practically be gasping for air.” Jessica Anya Blau
“The Finishing School pulls back the curtain to expose a fascinating world of desire, betrayal, and dangerous secrets.” Lou Berney
“A compelling tale of horrific teenage secrets inside the walls of an elite school in Switzerland, unearthed with verve and sly irony. ” Deborah Lawrenson
In this provactive novel of friendship, secrets, and deceit, a successful writer returns to her elite Swiss boarding school to get to the bottom of a tragic accident that took place 20 years earlier.
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ne spring night in 1998, the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident. But questions remain. Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? Cressida’s selfish streak had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school. For her best friend Kersti Kuusk, the questions nag. Kersti marries and becomes a bestselling writer, but never stops wondering about Cressida’s unaccountable obsession with the Helvetian Society --a secret club banned years before their arrival at the school— and the pair of its members who were expelled. When Kersti is invited as a guest to the Lycée’s 100th anniversary, she begins probing the cover-up, unearthing a frightening underbelly of lies and abuse at the prestigious establishment. In one portentous moment, Kersti makes a decision that will connect her to Cressida forever and raise the stakes dangerously high in her own desire to solve the mystery and redeem her past. The Finishing School is as clever as it is compelling. It is a riveting glimpse into a privileged rarefied world in which nothing is as it appears. Joanna Goodman is the author of three acclaimed novels. She lives in Toronto with her two children and her husband where they operate upscale retail linen shops Au Lit.
HarperCollins US April 2017 De Fontein Dutch 2018
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Kate Hilton Just Like Family
A
Praise for Just Like Family: “Kate Hilton is really smart, funny and honest about the complex and shifting power dynamics in both domestic and work relationships.”
Kate Eberlen, author of Miss You
“No one captures the feverish intensity of modern life, with its attendant disappointments, crises, and occasional triumphs, better than Kate Hilton...Not only is Just Like Family one of the funniest books I have read in a long while, its unflinching yet affectionate portrait of beleaguered heroine Avery Graham also makes it one of the most moving.” Jennifer Robson
“Just Like Family is a witty, thoughtful and layered tale of families, friends, and lovers, and the emotional landscape they all share. It’s messy and wise, heartbreaking and heartwarming, and above all, utterly captivating.”
Terry Fallis
very Graham has three husbands. Her ex-husband, Hugh, is a mistake she won’t repeat. An illicit affair that took an unexpected turn into matrimony, Avery’s marriage to Hugh, like her twenties self, was artistic, sexy and a little bit dangerous – until it was time to grow up. She can’t face him, because she can’t forgive herself. Her work-husband, Peter, is the charismatic mayor she has worshipped since childhood. Bound together by deep family connections, and by a shared vision, Avery has never trusted anyone the way she trusts Peter. Now his Chief of Staff, Avery is at her best professional self with Peter: cool, smart, strategic, and passionate about being of service to her community, And then there is Matt, Avery’s almost-husband, her romantic partner of fourteen years. With Matt, Avery has the comfort of a spouse without any limits on her independence. Or so she thought. When Matt announces that he wants to get married and start a family, Avery’s world is turned upside down. As she considers his proposal, Avery is forced to confront her deepest fears about love and loss, and decide who she wants to be. Just Like Family is witty, funny, and profound. Kate Hilton has an English degree from McGill University and a law degree from University of Toronto. She has worked in fund-raising and public relations and made her debut as a novelist with The Hole in the Middle, a bestseller in Canada for HarperCollins and scheduled for US by PenguinRandomHouse in 2016. A 4.5 starred review of it in RT Magazine notes: “The friendships, work relationships and struggles are so beautifully depicted that you will want to read it again to pick up the wisdom you missed the first time through.” She lives in Toronto and is the mother of two boys.
HarperCollins Canada June 2017
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Kate Hilton The Hole in the Middle A Redbook 20 Hottest Books to Read This Spring 2016
S Kate Hilton has worked in law, higher education, public relations, fundraising and publishing. She has an English degree from McGill University and a law degree from the University of Toronto. “The pacing is fast, the suspense is strong from start to finish.” Roberta Rich
“I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kate Hilton has created a warm, memorable and insightful heroine.”
Joy Fielding
“As moving as it is entertaining, this novel is crammed with funny, truthful moments that will strike a chord with over-extended women everywhere” Hello Magazine
“Wholly deserves to be set apart from other books of its ilk.”
The National Post
ophie Whelan is the epitome of the modern, successful woman. She has a great husband, two adorable children, funny, generous friends, and a high-powered job at a leading children’s hospital. When Sophie operates at peak performance, she can cajole balky employees, trouble-shoot career disasters, and throw a dinner party for 10 without anxiety. But as Sophie’s 40th birthday looms, her seamless life reveals disturbing web-like fractures. Conflict with her boss, blossoming jealousy of her husband’s femme fatale business partner, and feelings of hopeless inadequacy as a mother and daughter, crack the edifice of her life. There is a futher complication—the reappearance of Will Shannon who was the great love and crushing disappointment of her college days. He wants her to work for his family foundation. Ordinarily, it would be a dream job. Instead, the offer presents an ocean of dragons lying in ambush. Kate Hilton has a gift for creating characters who are easy to love, a flair for social comedy, and a talent for the surprising and satisfying ending. The Hole in the Middle, a Canadian bestseller, makes its US debut in 2016. Kate is completing her second novel, Just Like Family, about a woman executive who is juggling her “work husband”, her ex-husband, and her almost husband who wants a commitment. With sharp observational humour and deep poignancy, Kate Hilton explores themes of midlife disappointment and human connection.
Watch Kate Hilton’s interviews on Breakfast Television and The Morning Show HarperCollins CAN Dec 2013 NAL/Penguin Random House US 2016
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Michael Marrus Lessons of the Holocaust
Winner of The Canadian Jewish Literary Award for History
Praise for Lessons of the Holocaust: “Academic memoir, erudite historiographical essay, provocative challenge to a flood of clichés, thoughtful analysis of the nature and purpose of the historical profession, and intellectual feast—Michael Marrus’ Lessons of the Holocaust is all of these and a constant delight to read.”
Christopher R. Browning
“An important argument, relevant to scholars and popular audiences alike: that we must challenge, even discard, our unquestioned pieties regarding the Holocaust. This is an excellent, stimulating book, sure to be both well received and widely discussed.” Susannah Heschel
“Fascinating book by one of the masters...”
Yehuda Bauer
University of Toronto Press 2016
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hen the eminent historian Michael Marrus was a student at Berkeley in the 1960’s, the Holocaust—the great catastrophe of European Jewry—was hardly a footnote to the study of WWII. However, as the full horror of Germany’s Nazi regime emerged, the Holocaust grew to become a central and confounding event of the 20th Century. As knowledge about the genocide of European Jews has exploded, the quest to distil its “lessons” has intensified. What can we learn from the Holocaust? Is there a redemptive message, or “take away” that may help prevent such depravity in the future? Teasing these lessons out of the ashes of World War II is far more complex than familiar platitudes might suggest. Who defines the lessons? Where do we look for them—to the victims, to the perpetrators, to the bystanders, to the political leaders? How do we commemorate or memorialize the Holocaust? Indeed, are there lessons? Michael Marrus, an internationally renowned historian and expert on the Holocaust, brings us into the conversation as he surveys this urgent question. Here are such authorities as Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Raul Hilberg, Emil Fackenheim, Christopher Browning, Daniel Goldhagen, and others. Yet, they often come up short on definitive “lessons.” In this brief, sharp, stimulating analysis by a historian still totally engaged with his subject, Marrus offers the reader a new approach to the Holocaust lessons so many of us seek. Michael Marrus is the author of The Holocaust in History, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46: A Documentary History, Vichy France and the Jews (with Robert O. Paxton), and Some Measure of Justice, on Holocaust restitution. He is a Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Wolfe Professor Emeritus of HoloBeverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Ken McGoogan Dead Reckoning:
The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage
I
n this magnificent book, Ken McGoogan weaves past and present, the personal and the historical, the scientific and the romantic, into a seamless tale.
Praise
for
Dead
Reckoning:
“Finally! A page turning book about Arctic exploration that puts the heroism and leadership of indigenous people at the centre of the story.” Bob Rae
“Ken McGoogan is not just a journalist writing about Canada’s north, he is the ultimate guide to our last frontier. This is his natural habitat – and it shows. A mustread.” Peter C. Newman
“This book is a masterpiece, settling the standard for future works on Arctic explorataion.”
Victoria Times Colonist
“This is not the Canadian history that we learned in school. But it is a far more nuanced and objective view of Indigenous people in North America. For that reason alone, McGoogan’s book deserves wide readership in our country. But Dead Reckoning also deserves to be read because it is so entrhalling.”
In Dead Reckoning, McGoogan reaches back to the 17thC when Arctic adventurers relied largely on speed x time to calculate their location. He conveys the sweep and splendour of Arctic history through accounts of the explorers, the fur traders, and above all the indigenous citizens who have been omitted from previous exploration narratives. Among them is Akaitcho, the Yellowknife chieftain who rescued John Franklin after he lost more than half his men on his first overland expedition. We also meet Tookoolito, an Inuk woman brought to England, who learned English and assisted Charles Francis Hall. There is Hans Hendrik, an Inuk who helped Philadelphia doctor Elisha Kent Kane. Along the way, McGoogan explodes some myths, notably the legend of Sir John Franklin’s heroism. McGoogan asserts that he was a hapless bungler who presided over the worst disaster is the history of Arctic exploration and that his prominence is due to a master spin-doctor—his wife Jane Franklin. The story of Franklin will continue today with the discovery of Franklin’s two lost ships, the Erebus and the Terror. Ken McGoogan is possibly the only historian of the Arctic who has made more than nine trips to the region, including journeys through the fabled Northwest Passage. His dozen published books include four biographies of Arctic explorers. He has won such coveted prizes as: the Pierre Berton Award for History, the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography, the Canadian Authors’ Association History Award, the Writers’ Trust of Canada Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, and an American Christopher Award.
The Georgia Straight
HarperCollins Canada 2017
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non Fiction
Keriann McGoogan The Field Test
A
Keriann McGoogan is an English-major turned primatologist turned editor. She has two degrees in primatology from the University of Calgary and a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Toronto. She transitioned from field work in the jungle to become an acquisitions editor for a leading educational publisher. She also is a board member for Planet Madagascar, a non-profit that aims to conserve Madagascar’s unique biodiversity while also helping the Malagasy people. She lives in Toronto with her partner and founder of Planet Madagascar, Travis Steffens.
t age 25 Keriann McGoogan scored the research project of her dreams. Her thesis adviser for her PhD in primatology recruited her for fieldwork studying lemurs in the remote forests of Madagascar. He had planned to set up the site and then depart after a few weeks, leaving Keriann to share the responsibilities with key Malagasy staff. His faith in his accomplished student was well placed. Keriann was comfortable in the bush, she had prior experience studying primates in Belize, and passion for her subject drove her. “No, I wasn’t soul searching or seeking to ‘find myself,’” she says. Her earlier fieldwork in Belize had also offered enticements. There, Keriann was part of a group of sixteen women and one sole male, Travis, a fellow Calgary student. They fell in love studying the Black Howler monkeys in the Belize jungle. Travis, though, wouldn’t be with her in the terrifying Madagascar jungle far from civilization. One by one, the supports put in place by her professor collapsed. When her right-hand man became delirious with malaria, Keriann—her calm and poised exterior hiding her trembling fears—was left to lead a small band of locals on a desperate three day trek to safety. Despite the terror, readers will find much to enjoy along the journey: the beauty of Madagascar, the interesting details of the famed lemurs, the glimpses of local culture and fauna, and above all the brave, beautiful, curious young woman on the trail.
Manuscript available
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Fiction
Donna Morrissey
T N OV E L AWA R D
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Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Fiction 2017 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award 2017 03/07/2017 11:42
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The exuberance of Donna Morrissey’s fans is boundless. Her six novels have been compared to Dickens, Hardy, Shakespeare and the Bible. Her literary awards are numerous, and her books have been widely published and translated into German, Japanese, Swedish, and Italian. Born in The Beaches, a small fishing outport on west coast of Newfoundland, she now lives in Halifax, Canada. “Morrissey summons energy ... the writing is poised, charged and tactile, almost biblical in places.”
The Sunday Times (London)
“Donna Morissey is one of our country’s finest writers. And The Fortunate Brother might very well be her most powerful novel to date. An intimate study of family, a murder mystery, a love song to a people and to what home truly means, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.” Joseph Boyden
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ith The Fortunate Brother Donna Morrissey surpasses her previous accomplishments. We once again see the full range of human longing, redemption and exultation through life in a remote fishing village in the North Atlantic. Here, great environmental and technological disruptions shake both land and society. The fish are gone, taking livelihood too. It is a real place but it takes on a mythic timelessness in Morrissey’s powerful story which weaves love, grief and murder. Kyle Now, the 20-year old youngest son of Sylvanus and Addie, is a charming, popular young man. With the tragic death of his brother Chris who perished in a violent explosion in the western oil fields, Kyle feels that it is his responsibility to shoulder the family burdens. His mother, the family’s tower of strength, is undergoing cancer treatment, while his father Sylvanus takes refuge in drinking. Threatening their fragile balance are two men who menace the community. One is the feral Trap who is suspected of causing Chris’s death in the oil sands. The other is Clar Gillard, the abusive husband of Addie’s friend Bonnie. Clar’s vicious insanity was glimpsed when he tied Bonnie to a chair and sprayed her with oven cleaner. Kyle and his father have a nasty altercation with Clar Gillard and when he is found dead on their doorstep, they are suspects in his murder. Desperately, father and son struggle to protect the other from arrest and to hide their danger from Addie. Even tiny, isolated communities harbor secrets, newcomers and outsiders who create turmoil in the social dynamic. Even here there are police seeking to re-establish order. With such simple materials Donna Morrissey has fashioned a breathtaking masterpiece.
Penguin Random House Canada 2016 Canongate UK 2017
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Praise for Donna Morrissey’s Novels
“Donna Morissey is one of our country’s finest writers. And The Fortunate Brother might very well be her most powerful novel to date. An intimate study of family, a murder mystery, a love song to a people and to what home truly means, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”
Joseph Boyden
“It’s cultivated insularity feels outside time. Morrissey is a terrific mood-setter, something she does not via political, stylistic, or cultural references but through the expertly rendered dialogue.”
The Globe and Mail
“[The Fortunate Brother] gives all the pleasure of a first-rate murder mystery, but its memorable characters and sublime language make it one of the very best literary novels I have read.”
Ron Rash
“Donna Morrissey is an absolute terrific original.”
David Adams Richards
“Morrissey summons energy and passion to invest this clash of the old versus the new with an epic quality––and succeeds ... the writing is poised, charged and tactile, almost biblical in places.”
The London Sunday Times
“Haunting, emotionally insistent, lyrical and powerful in its portrait of two unforgettable women--Livvy and Gen-whose fates are entwined by a violent act, The Deception of Livvy Higgs is Donna Morrissey’s best work yet. Morrissey has brought the WWII era into the present with the disturbing intimacy of a seance. A rare accomplishment.”
Howard Norman
“Irresistible...Masterful...The rich, rocky terrain of Newfoundland has borne a native storyteller with talent to burn in Donna Morrissey.”
Dublin Sunday Tribune
“Donna Morrissey is a wonderfully gifted writer. The setting of her books is Newfoundland, but their appeal is universal. To read one of her books is to wind up laughing or crying or somehow doing both at once.”
Wayne Johnston
“Everything is hyper-vivid in Morrissey’s world, not excluding emotions, dreams and unresolved conflicts ... Morrissey reveals the beauty and the terror of two economic realities, worlds apart from us and from each other.”
Toronto Star
“...Breathtakingly beautiful...A splendidly unique novel.”
Alistair MacLeod
spine 24mm Unconfirmed
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cliffs
den
The Fortunate Brother
of one mong
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Canongate UK
ars’
CATHERINE CHANTER
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Special Finishes: Matt & Spot
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Memoir
Timea Nagy & Shannon Moroney I Am Timea (working title)
T Above: Timea Nagy Timea Nagy is the recipient of The Meritorious Service Decoration From the Governor General of Canada (2017), the Prime Minister’s Volunteer Award (2012), the Queen Elizabeth Diamond, Jubilee Medal (2012), the Frederick Douglas Award from Free the Slaves International (2012), the National Hero Award from the Joy Smith Foundation (2011), the Crime Stoppers Award (2010) and the Attorney General of Ontario’s Award for Outstanding Victim Services (2011).
imea Nagy was the 19-year-old daughter of a policewoman when she answered a newspaper ad in Budapest to become a nanny in Canada. The agency appeared to be reputable and the salary would enable her to help her family at home. She had no idea that she had been lured by a ring of human traffickers. When she landed in Toronto the nightmare began. She was forced into sex labour in some of the city’s seediest nightclubs. She was held hostage by her “agents” for three months, until she made a terrifying leap to escape. “It was a hot July day in 1998, I was hiding in an apartment somewhere in Toronto fearing for my life.” As her outraged trafficker pounded on the door, about to burst in, Timea chose the only way out –to jump across the eighth floor balcony. After her escape, Timea began working with the police and government to combat human trafficking. She has directly aided more than 300 victims to escape their captors, assisted in 500 police investigations, and helped to convict a dozen ringleaders in 2012. Every year she educates thousands of police officers. In 2015 she made a 74-city North American tour sponsored by Verafin to reach 10,000 people in financial services. I Am Timea is a gripping, story, from her “recruitment”, through her time in captivity and forced sex labor, to her escape and recovery. Told in her irrepressible voice, her memoir is an urgent and moving tale from an internationally recognized advocate against human trafficking.
Above: Shannon Moroney
Doubleday Canada 2019 Other Rights Available
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Co-writer Shannon Moroney is the author of Through The Glass (Doubleday Canada, Simon & Schuster US, UK), a bestselling memoir chronicling her journey through grief, forgiveness and healing following the violent crimes of her husband in 2005. She is an advocate of restorative justice and a popular speaker worldwide. Doubleday Canada plans to publish Timea Nagy’s memoir in 2019. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Memoir
Memoir
Marina Nemat
Marina Nemat
Prisoner of Tehran
After Tehran
Finalist for 2012 Canada Reads
O
The FreePress US 2007 John Murray UK 2007 Penguin Canada 2007 Artemis Netherlands 2007 Weltbild Germany 2007 Cairo Italy 2007 Quidnovi Portugal 2007 Espasa Calpe/Planeta Spain 2007 Forum Sweden 2007 TV2Forlag Danish 2007 Psichogios Greece 2007 Tammerraamat Estonia 2007 Kinneret Israel 2007 Wisdom Korea 2007 Concept Marathi 2007 Jota Czech 2007 Planeta Brazil 2007 Trivium Kiado Hungary 2007 BWP Taiwan 2008 Alnari Serbian 2008 Duc In Altum Polish 2008 JCGawsewitch French 2008 Pustaka Alvabet Indonesia 2008 Ucila International Slovenia 2009 Pegasus Yayincilik Turkey 2010 Kalimat Arabic 2010 Sarasavi Sinhalese 2011 Film option Nerida Albanian 2017 Polirom Romania 2017
n January 15, 1982 Marina Nemat was arrested and sentenced to death for political crimes. It was a deadly time in Ayatollah Khomeini’s new regime, when her mildly critical article of the state in her high school newspaper put her on a watch list. Marina was seized from her family’s apartment in Tehran and taken to Evin prison. In a bizarre twist, one of the Revolutionary Guards, Ali, fell in love with her and plucked her from the firing squad with only minutes to spare. In return, he demanded that she marry him. If she didn’t, he said he would ensure that her family was harmed. After Ali was gunned down by rival factions and died in her arms, Marina was eventually released.
Bestseller in Germany, Italy, Canada • 5 printings in Portugal • 2 printings in Netherlands
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“...an account as graceful, honest, and revelatory as her original.”
hen Marina Nemat walks out of the notorious Evin prison at age 18, Maclean’s Magazine after being incarcerated for 2 years, 2 months, and 12 days “[a] portrait of an artist for political crimes, and crossand the evolution of an es the busy Jordan Highway activist.” Globe & Mail in Tehran to rejoin her family, she hopes to resume her life. “...a fascinating study of one woman’s struggle to But release from prison promwin back her life from ises a freedom that is elusive. the ravages of a trau- Her loving but flawed parmatic past.” ents are wary of probing the Quill & Quire details of torture and rape. Praise for Prisoner of Her high school sweetheart Andre has waited for her. Yet, Tehran she can’t tell him about her “Gripping, elegantly forced marriage to her captor, written memoir…mas- Ali, a Revolutionary Guard, or about Ali’s death, and the terly.” The Wall Street Journal miscarriage she had suffered. “Her story is unforget- She and Andre manage to table.” leave Iran to come to CanaVogue da in 1991 and to raise two “It is an act of bravery, sons. Despite her attempts to compartmentalize her presthis book” The Globe and Mail ent from her past, survivor guilt, the burden of secrets, and flashbacks of the agonies she suffered, intrude on her life as a housewife and mother Penguin Canada 2010 with a job as a waitress at a Cairo Italy Nov 2010 suburban fast food restaurant. Droemer Germany 2012 Kinneret Israel 2012
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Non-Fiction
Terry O’Reilly This I Know
Big Marketing Lessons for Small Business
Canada’s most famous adman spills a career’s worth of marketing secrets, so anyone can compete with the best in their business – whatever that business may be. Terry O’Reilly has won hundreds of advertising awards as a copywriter and commercial director, and is the co-founder of Pirate Radio & Television. Under the Influence is broadcast on CBC Radio and WBEZ Chicago. His audience abroad includes listeners in Britain, Germany, France, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, Japan, China, Philippines and Mexico.
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The New York Festival awarded the show the Grand Trophy as the Best Radio Program in 2011 and again in 2012. In 2011, iTunes named the show the Best New Podcast of the year, and in 2015 listed it as one of their top podcasts.
Following his bestselling Age of Persuasion, O’Reilly collects a lifetime of marketing wisdom into an indispensable guide to competing for your customer’s attention. From understanding what business you’re really in and foregoing the extra mile in favour of the extra inch, to the benefits of counter intuitive thinking and knowing an opportunity when you see one, This I Know will help anyone understand the fundamentals of good marketing strategy and building the relationships that turn good marketing into great results, no matter how big or small your budget.
Praise for This I Know:
ig Companies spend a fortune marketing their wares and services. Can yours? Invariably people ask advertising veteran and CBC Radio host Terry O’Reilly one question more than any other: How does a little business that can’t afford a big-time marketing agency access high-level marketing thinking? After decades at the helm of an award-winning advertising company, and over a decade exploring the art and science of marketing for CBC Radio, O’Reilly delivers all the answers they--and anyone with something to sell--ever wanted to know.
“This I Know opens with 14 sturdy, anecdote-infused chapters covering the basics of marketing – from strategy to storytelling to nudging – in an engaging, memorable way...the book will keep you happy and engaged.”
The Globe and Mail
Knopf Canada 2017 Booky China 2018 Chicago Review Press USA 2018
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Click here to listen to Under the Influence on CBC Radio. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Historical Thriller
Roberta Rich A Trial in Venice
I
n 1575, when midwife Hannah Levi rescued the newborn son of wealthy Venetian parents from being slain by his larcenous uncle, she fled with the orphaned child and her husband Isaac to Constantinople.
Praise for The Midwife of Venice: “Roberta Rich introduces a unique heroine, and her wry humour leavens a serious subject.”
Globe & Mail
“The Midwife of Venice is a compelling and engaging novel, a well-researched high-stakes drama written with elegance and compassion. Fascinating!” Sandra Gulland
Praise for The Harem Midwife: “Rich describes the opulence of royal life in Constantinople set against conspiracy and betrayal... the more heavenly the surroundings, the more treacherous the characters.” Toronto Star
“The details of 16th-century life in Constantinople are delightfully portrayed, the storyline is compelling …. an entertaining read, sure to please” Vancouver Sun
Doubleday Canada April 2017 Boekencentrum Netherlands 2017 Euromedia Group Czech 2017 Kinneret Israel 2017 Hermes Bulgaria 2017
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They doted on their adopted son and allowed themselves to hope there would be no repercussions. Matteo’s entire family had perished in the plague and Hannah and Isaac were his world. But Matteo, heir to fabulous riches of the di Padovani estate, attracted the attention of Antonio Foscari, a cold scoundrel in desperate need of a fortune. Cunning and flamboyant, sporting a sinister silver nose, Foscari still is no match for his spirited accomplice, the scheming Cesca who had wormed her way into Hannah’s life. Cesca and Foscari abduct Matteo and abscond with him to Venice. Foscari plots to have the court declare him guardian—and then plans to kill the child. When Hannah, in her distress to save her child, is lured to Venice, she is arrested and jailed. She must stand trial for the murder of Matteo’s uncle. In this stew of avarice and deceit, there is one truly noble character, the esteemed architect Andrea Palladio who owns the villa adjacent to the lands once controlled by the di Padovani family. Roberta Rich secured a respected place in the gallery of historical novelists with The Midwife of Venice, which introduced Hannah. An international bestseller, it has been licensed in 18 countries. It is followed by The Harem Midwife and A Trial in Venice. In her next novel, Roberta Rich turns to the rich period in American immigrant history—the colorful, roiling quarter of New York’s 20th Century tenement district. Roberta Rich divides her time between Vancouver Canada and Colima, Mexico.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Historical Thriller
Roberta Rich divides her time between Vancouver and Mexico. Learn more at robertarich.com
Globe and Mail Bestseller No. 1 BESTSELLER on Amazon.ca, and over 11 weeks on Top 100 list Doubleday Canada February 2011 Bloomsbury Berlin Germany 2011 Gallery US February 2012 MA Editions France 2012 Inkilap Kitabevi Turkey 2012 Ebury UK 2012 Juritzen Forlag Norway 2012 Medialive Content Spain 2012 Tericum Kiado Hungary 2012 Hermes Books Bulgaria 2013 Novo Seculo Brazil 2013 Kinneret Israel 2013 Court Echelle Quebec 2013 Alnari Serbia 2013 Boekencentrun Netherlands 2013 Euromedia Czech Rep. 2015 Ikar Slovakia 2015 Petrone Print Estonia 2016
Historical Thriller
Roberta Rich
Roberta Rich
The Midwife of Venice
The Harem Midwife
H
annah Levi, a midwife in the Venetian ghetto, has gained renown for her skill in coaxing reluctant babies out of their mother’s bellies. One night a Christian nobleman appears at Hannah’s door in the Jewish ghetto with an impossible request. He implores Hannah to help his dying wife and save their unborn child. The Conte offers her a huge sum of money, enough to enable her to sail to Malta to ransom her beloved husband, Isaac. Hannah delivers the infant, Matteo, a child who captures her heart. As she prepares to depart for Malta, she discovers that the baby’s uncles are plotting to murder the child in order to seize the family fortune. Hannah rescues the baby Matteo and is forced to flee her persuers. The Midwife of Venice, which has sold 106,000 copies in Canada alone, has been a triumph internationally.
“Rich describes the opulence of royal life in Constantinople set against conspiracy and betrayal... the more heavenly the surroundings, the more treacherous the characters.” Toronto Star
“Love, roses, Turkish delight, blood, babies and a plucky heroine who triumphs. A great read!” National Post
Doubleday CAN 2013 Randomhouse/Ebury UK 2014 Simon & Schuster/Gallery US 2014 Tericum Kiado Hungary 2014 Boekencentrum Netherlands 2014 Oceanida Greece 2015 Hermes Bulgaria 2015 Juritxen Forlag Norway 2015 Euromedia Czech Rep. 2015 Inkilap Turkey 2015
H
annah and Isaac return in this opulent, riveting, and suspenseful tale--a sequel to the #1 national bestseller The Midwife of Venice. Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, and are now in Constantinople where Hannah is now midwife in the harem of Sultan Murat III. There, she’s confronted with Leah, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the harem where she unwillingly captures the Sultan’s affection. Hannah must choose between saving the abused Leah or maintaining her relatively safe position at the palace. An adventurous, opulent and deliciously exciting read, peopled with fascinating, and unforgettable characters. It confirms Roberta Rich’s reputation as one of the most beloved historical fiction authors.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Lionel Tiger Darwin’s Defeat
How The Pill Changed Everything
Lionel Tiger is the author of 10 books including Men in Groups, The Decline of Males, The Pursuit of Pleasure, and co author of The Imperial Animal (with Robin Fox) and God’s Brain (with Michael McGuire). Born in Montreal, a graduate of McGill, he was recruited from Vancouver’s University of British Columbia to Rutgers where he was the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology. He lives in New York City and his articles appear frequently in such leading journals as The Wall St. Journal and The New York Times. His appearances include university panels and TEDx talks. Tiger also has been an anthropoligical consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on the future of biotechnology. His areas of study include day care, young males, college demographics, the workforce and human alienation from their biological roots. His works have been translated into many languages, such as Korean, Chinese, Dutch, French and Turkish, Japanese, and Spanish. Manuscript available www.slopenagency.com
With his world-changing book On the Origin of the Species published in 1859, Charles Darwin exploded fundamental concepts of God and sex. By revealing two immutable laws of nature –i.e. evolution of species and natural selection, Darwin joined the pantheon of scientists as foundational as Newton and Copernicus. And yet, an unforeseen seismic change occurred. In the 1960s the contraceptive pill and other reproductive technologies spread in the industrialized world, altering core elements of sexual interaction. Lionel Tiger, the Charles Darwin Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Rutgers University, notes: “Sexual selection can no longer function for humans in the manner on which the Darwinian system was predicated. We have to rethink the matter.” Tiger’s first book Men in Groups, published in 1969, was prompted by primate research revealing that relations between adult male primates differed from those with females or children. The book not only introduced male bonding into the language, it inspired female rage. Difference in biology was interpreted as inequality. Darwin’s Defeat abounds with insights on major societal changes. • The Pill works by hormonally simulating pregnancy in women. What is the effect of this on men? Tiger reports its effects on nonhuman primates. • Young men are alienated from the means of reproduction • Young men are increasingly seen as carriers of male original sin. • Women are surpassing men in education –are they studying for two? • Women are surpassing men in work but is a reported wage gap the result of a choice to slow their careers for 5 to 7 years to be with their children? • Birth rates in the industrial world are declining precipitously –47% of women of childbearing years are childless. The ensuing conversation will be lively, informative, and raucous. There is no going back. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Lionel Tiger and Michael McGuire God’s Brain
G
od’s Brain is not about whether God exists or not. It is not an assertion about whether or not religions are good, noble, necessary, a sign of infirmity, or catalogues of grand silliness.
“This is easily the best book on the nature of religion to appear for a long time.”
This book answers the essential questions of existence. What is the purpose of religion? What is its source? Why does 80% of the world’s population have some religious affiliation?
“The book is a well-written, easy to read, unique perspective on religion.”
God’s Brain describes why, how, and what the brain does as part of religious experience and organization. Neurophysiology and neuroanatomy are as necessary to understanding religion as knowing about the leg’s muscles and blood circulation is necessary to train hurdlers.
Robin Fox, University Professor of Social Theory, Rutgers University
Jay R. Feierman, editor, The Biology of Religious Behavior
“Recent, often bitter debates have lacked a scientific take on religion that is not at the same time trying to destroy it. This lively, creative account helps fill that gap. It may even help you with your own trials of faith.” Melvin Konner, author of The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints
on the Human Spirit
“Tiger and McGuire have concocted an amazing and insightful look—based on sound science— into how the human brain ‘seeks’ religion.”
R. Curtis Ellison, MD, professor of medicine and public health, Boston University School of Medicine Prometheus Books 2010 Wise Book Korea 2011 Lannoo Dutch 2011 Alfa Turkey 2011
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In God’s Brain, the authors consider religion’s role in socialization, its relentless obsession with regulating sex, its conceptions of an after-life, its influence on law, and the similarities between non-human primate and human social groups. They also demonstrate religion’s ability to help the brain adjust to stress and anxiety in lieu of modern-day drugs and therapy. This answer to Dawkins and Hitchens is without judgment but is scientifically and socially judicious. The story is told by a master neuropsychiatrist and an accomplished detective about the mysteries of human behavior. It is the most important book on the subject of religion to appear, for both the religious and non believers alike. Michael McGuire, MD, is the author or editor of 10 books including Darwinian Psychiatry (with A. Troisi), and he is the primary discoverer of seratonin’s crucial role in brain chemistry. He is President of the Biomedical Research Foundation, and Director of the Bradshaw Foundation and the Gruter Institute of Law and Behaviour. Lionel Tiger is the bestselling author of Men in Groups, The Imperial Animal (with Robin Fox) and The Pursuit of Pleasure. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Harvard Business Review and Brain and Behavioural Science. He is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Edward Shorter and Max Fink The Psychosis of Fear: A History of Catatonia
T
his important book is the first history of the psychiatric illness called catatonia, a disease that has been virtually forgotten by medicine, with dangerous consequences.
Edward Shorter is a medical historian who has written and published widely about psychiatry. Among his many published works is Endocrine Psychiatry, written with Max Fink and published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Max Fink is a clinician whose writings on melancholia, catatonia, and convulsive therapy have been internationally recognized.
The main symptoms of catatonia affect movement and thought, including staring, stupor, mutism, food refusal, negativism and even psychosis. During a stupor, patients often experience terrifying images and thoughts. In 1874, these age-old symptoms were brought together in the single term “catatonia” by German psychiatrist Karl Kahlbaum. Thirty years later, catatonia disappeared from view as an independent illness, and was turned into a “subtype” of dementia praecox (schizophrenia). There, catatonia remained submerged from view for almost a century. It was rediscovered as a disease of its own only in the 1990s. Today, catatonic symptoms are seen in ten percent of admissions to psychiatric emergency departments. It is relatively easy to treat but untreated, catatonia can have a fatal outcome. Unlike schizophrenia, catatonia responds readily to therapy and symptoms vanish without a trace. Those afflicted sometimes have been described as “Lazurus patients.” They may have languished for years or even had “hospice papers on their bed stands.” But since the 1960s, with lorazepam or electroconvulsive therapy, even those in long-term catatonic stupors can be given new lives, often without relapse, or residual symptoms. It is a kind of miracle. This book is about that miracle. What triggers catatonia? In this fascinating history, replete with dramatic case studies, the authors argue that it may be a complex response to fear and alarm, or trauma. Increased awareness is essential.
Oxford University Press World English June 2018
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-fiction
Edward Shorter Desire:
A History of the Adult Entertainment Industry
Edward Shorter who completed his Ph.D at Harvard, is Jason A. Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine Professor of Psychiatry at University of Toronto. His book The Making of the Modern Family (1975), helped launch a new field of study. He also has written on the impact of medical issues on women’s lives in A History of Women’s Bodies (1982). Since the mid 1990s Edward Shorter emerged as an internationally recognized historian of psychiatry. History of Psychiatry (1997), A Historical Dictionary of Psychiatry (2005) and Before Prozac (2009) are landmark publications. His recent book is How Everyone Became Depressed, Oxford University Press, 2013.
In 2005, Edward Shorter, the internationally respected medical and social historian wrote Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire, a groundbreaking work on human sexuality. Documenting attitudes and practices in the western world from pre-history into the 1970s, it is a tour de force. Published by University of Toronto Press, it was short-listed for a major non-fiction literary prize, the Governor General’s Award. At the time, Shorter thought he said everything there was to say about the history of sex. And then… there were new developments. The huge appetite for pornography emerged and turned into a multi-billion dollar business. The acceptance of behaviours from the pornographers’ toolkit were going mainstream as demonstrated by Fifty Shades of Grey or Amy Schumer, et al. Shorter writes: “As I got into the story, it became clear to me that the adult entertainment industry wasn’t just a source. It was part of the story. Internet porn was actually changing people’s tastes.“ Shorter is part scholar, part journalist, part social commentator. The industry is run by savvy men and women who are proud of what they do. Indeed, we in publishing know a large contingent as friends and colleagues—the eBook and print publishers like those at Random House, Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, HarperCollins, and other merchants of erotica. The book’s table of contents includes: Early Days; From Movie House to Jimmyland; Is Porn Bad? Models; Abuse? Internet; Gonzo; In Front of the Camera, Behind the Camera; Woodsmen; Dominance; Anal; Gay/Lesbian; Toys; Camming and Dating; Black Porn; Transgendered. Readers, even the squeamish, will find Professor Shorter informative, entertaining, refreshingly straight-spoken, and unshockable.
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Fiction
Michelle Tisseyre The Golden Hour
T Reviews of Divided Passions (Key Porter 1997) The French language version, La Passion de Jeanne, was published by Robert Laffont, 1997 “…a great read reminiscent of The Forsyte Saga. It might be a bit bleaker than John Galsworthy, but it reads like a thoroughly 20th century novel—the writing is sleek and forward-moving...” Globe and Mail
he Golden Hour is a powerful love story set against the sweep of history and the complications of great passion. Louis Marshall, an idealistic young British doctor in Montreal 1928, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a married woman from a prominent Catholic family, whose vengeful husband refuses to divorce her and denies her access to their nine-year-old daughter Kitty. Forced to leave to start a new life, the lovers reunite in New York and sail for England, where the scars of the Great War are still fresh, and an unequal society is soon to be riven further by the Crash of 1929 and its aftermath. Returning to Louis’ hometown of Cambridge and a past he keeps to himself, Louis begins a life of service while Jeanne, unmoored from her roots and torn from her daughter, struggles against insecurity and isolation. After one last attempt to reconnect with Kitty ends in failure, Jeanne commits herself fully to her new life and Louis takes over a country practice in a hardscrabble, backward area of Cambridgeshire. But as storm clouds gather over Europe and social unrest spreads to Britain, tragedy strikes, driving Jeanne and Louis apart, just as the drumbeat of war grows ever louder. Tisseyre’s story spans the tumultuous decade of the 1930’s in Montreal, New York, and the U.K., bringing vividly to life an era of elegance and ease for some, grinding poverty for others, student unrest at Cambridge University, Hunger Marches to London and violence at the hands of Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts, with another war coming and people desperate to stop it. Michelle Tisseyre is a novelist equally at ease in French and in English. Her best-selling first novel, Divided Passions (La passion de Jeanne) was published in Canada by Key Porter and in France by Robert Laffont. She lived in England for several years but has returned to her home in Montreal. She is the mother of seven children.
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Biography
Sandra B. Tooze Levon Helm: Keepin’ It Real
S Sandra Tooze garnered worldwide acclaim for her book Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man. Eric Clapton wrote the foreword, and Levon Helm and Mick Jagger both endorsed it in back-cover quotes. The reviewer for America’s preeminent blues magazine, Living Blues, called it “a first-rate biography … An illumination and a joy, it deserves a place on our shelves as a loving and earnest tribute to one of the greats of American music.” On Britain’s BBC Radio, her book was described as “terrific … absolutely great.” And in the U.K.’s premier music magazine, Mojo, it was praised as “a vivid, brilliantly researched portrait.”
andra Tooze, author of the acclaimed biography, Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man, turns to Levon Helm in this biography of a talented, often tragic musician in the era that saw the convergence of blues, country and R&B. As a young man, Levon Helm emerged from the cotton fields of Arkansas to join rockabilly wild man Ronnie Hawkins, whose band soon included Robbie Robertson. By the mid-1960s, they had left Hawkins and were playing with Bob Dylan (Nobel Prize winner) and on their way to making rock history as The Band. Levon, a drummer who played mandolin, guitar, and bass guitar, was listed by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the top 100 Greatest Singers, and was praised by Bruce Springsteen. His influence extended to other musicians like Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. He won three Grammys for his own albums and as a member of The Band, he was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But exciting youth gave way in his last 36 years to feelings of betrayal by his closest friend Robbie Robertson whom he accused of disloyalty and financial misconduct. Helm died in 2012 at age 71 after a long struggle with cancer. Levon Helm: Keepin’ It Real will be the first full-length, penetrating biography of this versatile musician and actor. His autobiography presented the story as seen only by Helm, his closest friends and loved ones. Tooze’s book expands that perspective stepping back and take an all-inclusive view — warts and all. It will be an objective, balanced portrayal.
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Mystery
Morley Torgov Key Witness
T Praise for Morley Torgov’s Hermann Preiss series: “Torgov has just the right feel for this kind of writing, never coy, solid with his history but not allowing the facts to get in the way of a good joke.” Toronto Star
“You don’t have to be a classical music lover to enjoy this one.” Publisher’s Weekly
“Worthy of Hitchcock.”
The Whole Note
“This is a story well told: Setting, character, plot, enriched by the lifestyles and colours of the time. Murder is investigated, clues unearthed, expanded and timed to keep the reader turning the pages. Music and mystery make captivating partners.” Hamilton Spectator
he cast of Morley Torgov’s new mystery is dazzling. There is Franz Liszt, a virtuoso of the piano, and heartthrob of 19th C Europe. There is PT Barnum, the flamboyant American showman. And there is a young Mark Twain, soon to be a celebrated author and humorist. To assuage Liszt’s concerns about security, Barnum engages Dusseldorf detective Hermann Preiss who captivated readers in Torgov’s two previous mysteries set in the world of classical music. To the main characters, add Liszt’s egomaniacal American rival, a couple of avaricious manufacturers of grand pianos who are fighting to have the Maestro endorse their instruments, and two or three beauties on the prowl for opportunities. With riches, fame, and recognition on the line, corruption is inevitable and so is murder.
Morley Torgov is the author of nine novels, including two previous Hermann Preiss mysteries. Murder in A-Major featuring Robert Schumann and The Mastersinger from Minsk featuring Wagner have been translated into French, Greek, and Korean with others pending. His French publisher, Actes Sud, is printing 10,000 copies of Murder in A-Major for a special promotion. He also has written a complete working draft of a fourth Preiss novel, Twilight of A God. Tchaikovsky has journeyed with his secret male lover to Beyrueth to review a new opera by Wagner. When a naked wealthy woman is found murdered in Tchaikovsky’s bed and her fabulous ring is missing, Tchaikovsky is the suspect. Two of Torgov’s books—The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick and A Good Place to Come From—have been adapted for stage, film, and a TV series. His literary prizes include the Leacock Medal for Humour. Although his mysteries are deadly serious, his irrepressible wit is evident. He also has two more: Death of a Critic about the young Maller, and the fifth, Over His Dead Body, about Maller some years later.
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Morley Torgov Mysteries
Morley Torgov
Morley Torgov
The Mastersinger
Murder in
From Minsk
A-Major
An Inspector Hermann Preiss Mystery
An Inspector Hermann Preiss Mystery
I
n the city of Munich, 1868, composer Richard Wagner has finally completed the libretto and score for his new opera “Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg.” After a string of extremely difficult years - Wagner’s “Torgov has just the right reputation and financial feel for this kind of writ- stability depend on the sucing, never coy, solid with cess of his new work. Morley Torgov is an award-winning author of nine novels that have been published internationally. He divides his time between writing and practising law in Toronto.
his history but not allowing the facts to get in the When an anonymous note way of a good joke.” arrives threatening WagToronto Star
ner’s premiere, Inspector Hermann Preiss is called to “You don’t have to be a classical music lover to investigate. With the premiere less than two months enjoy this one.” Publisher’s Weekly away, and an enemy list stretching from one opera “Worthy of Hitchcock.” act to another, discoverThe Whole Note ing the perpetrator before opening night will be Preiss’ Magnum Opus. There are three more Hermann Preiss mystery novels, Twilight of a God, Death of a Critic, and Over His Dead Body for a total of six in the series to date.
Actes Sud France 2013
“It’s still easy to see why, in the early days of his long writing career, Toronto’s Morley Torgov won two Leacock medals for humour... This is so even in his first venture into crime genre fiction, which shifts back in time to the 19th-century European world of what has become known as classical music.” Joan Barfoot London Free Press
T
ake one of the crowning musical geniuses of midnineteenth centry Europe, surround him with enemies, add several scoundrels, including one who ends up murdered under highly mysterious circumstances...and there you have the world of Robert and Clara Schumann in Germany of the 1850s. This is a historical mystery that explores what or who was driving Robert Schumann mad. It takes the reader into the world of mid-nineteenth century music, where classical composers were stars, and their egos were just as monstrous as the rock stars of today.
“This is a story well told: Setting, character, plot, enriched by the lifestyles and colours of the time. Murder is investigated, clues unearthed, expanded and timed to keep the reader turning Inspector Preiss tackles a the pages. Music and mysterious off-key A on the mystery make captivatSchumanns’ piano, but are ing partners.” Hamilton Spectator
all mysteries meant to be solved? Inspector Preiss has the final answer.
Metaixmio Publishing Greece 2009 Sallim Publishing Korea 2009 Actes Sud France 2009
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Non-Fiction
Michael Ungar, Ph.D. The Real Reasons We Succeed
M
ichael Ungar, acclaimed author and researcher in psychological resilience, has uncomfortable truths for those who hector people to pull themselves up by their figurative bootstraps.
Michael Ungar is author of Too Safe For Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive, The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids, and I Still Love You: Nine Things Troubled Kids Need from their Parents. He is founder and Director of the Resilience Research Centre where he coordinated more than $10 million dollars in funded research in a dozen countries. He consultants regularily to organizations such as the World Bank, UNESCO and the Red Cross.
“Even Cinderella had a fairy godmother,” Dr. Ungar says. Persistence, smarts, or decency can take you only so far in life. We need environments rich in opportunities that make it possible for us to realize our talents, exploit our positive character traits and reward us for our efforts. “Resilience depends just as much on what we have on the outside as what we have on the inside,” Ungar explains, poking holes in the belief that grit is enough. With his research in 40 countries spanning more than a decade, Dr. Ungar identifies a shortlist of 12 experiences we need to recover and thrive when our lives are in turmoil. These include not only lots of strong relationships with family, friends and colleagues but also structure, reasonable consequences, a powerful identity, control over things that matter, fair treatment, safety, financial confidence, positive thinking, and the physical capacity to do what we need to do. Using real life examples of people who have beat the odds, Dr. Ungar shows how we can shape our environment to our benefit when events bite. His advice is compassionate, empowering and, best of all, grounded in the experiences of the thousands of people with whom he’s worked. Michael Ungar is Principal Investigator for the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, His blog Nurturing Resilience appears on Psychology Today’s website reaching some 50,000 readers. In the past ten years, he has delivered more than 500 keynote and workshop presentations. Learn more at: www.michaelungar.com
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Fiction
Rangeley Wallace Redwood Summer
Rangeley Wallace moved from Alabama to Washington, D.C. where she is an author and a lawyer. She is the author of No Defense (St. Martin’s Press). Learn more at: www.rangeleywallace.com
Before Annie can celebrate, her husband John lands his dream job— President of the University of South Alabama—which means moving the family from Washington DC to Carsonville and leaving the life she loves. Annie is devastated. Family comes first, though, and she reluctantly accepts a post as a “spousal hire” at USA’s law school to run a legal clinic in environmental law. The problem is that legal clinics require real legal cases and Annie, embarrassingly, doesn’t have one for the start of term.
Praise for No Defense “Wallace avoids any Grishamcome-lately clichés in this interesting novel of southern justice... This page-turner of a novel is refreshing in it’s uncommon perspective, as opposed to the usual legal novel that focuses on lawyers.” Booklist
“Rangeley Wallace has written a taut, compelling Southern drama that is cut from the same cloth as Harper Lee and the early William Faulkner.” Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump
“A riveting courtroom drama… Another fine story in the Southern literary tradition.”
Library Journal
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Annie Fitzpatrick is committed-- to her husband, to her kids, and to protecting the environment. She teaches environmental law at George Washington University and has been awarded a prestigious grant to stop gas companies from fracking on public lands.
Then, a great case swims into her orbit, requiring a pact with the devil. William Davidson, the great unresolved love of her youth, enlists her and her students to take the case of saving the Muskogee National Forest, which Annie has grown to love. In her college days at Stanford, Davidson, a notorious and charismatic activist, held Annie in his thrall. He betrayed her, but worse, he seduced her to stray from her ethical bedrock. It is a source of enduring shame which she has kept secret from her family and her husband. She and Billy are united once more by their passion against a common cause, even as the shadows and temptations of their history linger. With the clock ticking and the forest at imminent risk, she and Billy and her students begin the court fight of their lives. But as angry protest demonstrations divide the town and the secrets of her past go viral, the situation becomes explosive. I Knew You When is an engrossing exploration of the intensity of first love and the lengths we will go to follow our passions, It will appeal to readers of Kristin Hannah, Randy Susan Meyers and Karen White and represents Rangeley Wallace’s finest work.
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Don Gutteridge Kate Hilton David Healy Tod Hoffman Blanche Howard David Israelson Mary Jackman Basil Johnston Martin Knelman Eric Koch Jack Kuper Will Kymlicka Bob Lewis Elliott Leyton S.F. MacKay Dr. Mailis-Gagnon Michael Marrus Dona Matthews Leon Major Rona Maynard Jack McClelland Ken McGoogan
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