Beverley Slopen Fall 2014 Literary Agency
131 Bloor Street West #711 Toronto Canada M5S 1S3 Telephone 416 964 9598 email beverley@slopenagency.ca www.slopenagency.com
Mystery
Tony Aspler Nightmare in Napa
E
zra Brant has a dream job. He makes a living writing about wine, consulting about wine, and judging wine, which means he travels to the most glorious wine regions of the world.
Tony Aspler is co-founder of a charitable foundation Grapes for Humanity, which raises money for children with disabilities and victims of land mines. Honors include the Order of Canada, induction into the New York Media Wine Writers Hall of Fame, and the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. “It’s good to see Ezra Brant back in action again, this time in a caper involving mixed-up baggage and biker gangs in the Napa Valley. Its nimble pace should keep you on your toes, and it cries out for an accompanying glass of Stag’s Leap!” Peter Robinson
It also gives Ezra a close-up view of the rivalries, power grabs, and displays of ego by wealthy wine hobbyists, wine producers, wine journalists and judges. In Nightmare in Napa, Ezra is looking forward to covering the annual Premiere Napa Valley Barrel Auction. The other attraction is C.C. his lively, undemanding long-distance lover who is a respected wine producer. On the plane from New York to San Francisco, Ezra’s seatmate is an appealingly flighty red-head named Mona who is also bound for Napa to visit her twin sister Lisa. Not until they land does Ezra suspect that Mona, through her New York prison connections, has acquired something that rival motorcycle gangs in Napa would kill for. Mona has made it appear to her pursuers that she has slipped Ezra the tiny, precious object, putting him in the crosshairs of the fearsome Hells Angels gang. Also in Napa is a billionaire winery owner who is murdered and Ezra is the major person of interest for the police. Ezra has to escape from the wrath of the gang members and prove his innocence. He would also like to keep C.C. in his life, but that may be a goal too far. Tony Aspler is the author of nine novels including three previous Ezra Brant mysteries that were published from 1994 to 1996 in the UK by Headline. Rights have now reverted. He has also written more than 17 books on wine and food in his 30-year career.
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Young Adult Fiction
Henry Aubin Ride Hard, Shoot Straight, Speak the Truth Set in a little known but harrowing period of ancient history when black Africans from Kush, aka Nubia, ruled Egypt (circa 728 BC to 663 BC) and the menacing superpower in the region was Assyria. Henry Aubin is author of the groundbreaking history, Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 B.C, (Doubleday Can and Soho US) and the novel Rise of the Golden Cobra. American-born, he lives in Montreal where is a columnist for the Montreal Gazette. Praise for Rise of the Golden Cobra: “Aubin keeps the pages turning... This is a well-crafted and intriguing adventure that exposes students to a different world, even as it offers them danger, excitement, and the opportunity to ponder serious moral issues.”
School Library Journal
“Aubin has obviously found uncharted territory for his considerable skills as a storyteller... The implications about the nature of heroism are all the more effective for being subtle.”
Quill & Quire
“A page-turner that boys in particular will love... Packed with adventure, action and timeless truths.”
It is a time when armies were experimenting with a new, cutting-edge combat force--a cavalry. The conventional wisdom was that bareback riders would never replace chariots. Hip, a Kushite, is 12 when he proves he can hold his own against boys two or three years older. Seeking glory like his famous father, Hip becomes the youngest recruit in the army’s three-year training program for light-cavalry scouts and raiders. Most of the novel portrays his adventures at age 15, when he journeys with his regiment across the Sinai Desert to try to defend the kingdom of Gaza against attack by the Assyrian emperor Sargon. Hip’s sweetheart, Meryt, is a refugee from Samaria, the capital of Israel that the Assyrians have already conquered (720 BC). Having witnessed the horrors of war, Meryt--now a nurse who tends wounded soldiers --challenges Hip’s belief that warfare is a proper arena for achieving heroism and glory. Hip is captured, escapes and does serious damage to the Assyrian supply line. In so doing, he amply fulfills the conventional definition of heroism. But, with Meryt’s help, he comes to see that a higher form of heroism exists. Ride Hard, Shoot Straight, Speak the Truth is an action-packed, solidly researched story presents an era unfamiliar to readers--a time before the invention of saddles and stirrups when riding in battle was exceptionally difficult, when Africans were briefly major players in the Middle East, when racism as we know it today did not exist, when Assyria with its ruthless war machine became what one historian calls, the “forbear of Nazi Germany.”
Montreal Review of books Manuscript Available
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History
Lita-Rose Betcherman The Richest Girl in England The Marriages of the Duchess of Buckingham
K Lita-Rose Betcherman is author of the acclaimed Court Lady and Country Wife and other awardwinning works of history. Praise for Court Lady and Country Wife “...an intimate view of Stuart England” The New York Times
“This is popular history at it’s best.”
Jane Dunn
“Having reached adulthood on the eve of Charles I’s succession, the sisters lived through one of the most turbulent periods of British history…a fascinating introduction to two closely united lives— housewife and public figure—all the more interesting because of the contrast between them.” Times Literary Supplement
atherine Manners was a girl when she fell under the spell of the magnetic George Villiers, later the Duke of Buckingham. His family estates were nearby her father’s castle Belvoir but George, a favourite of King James, scarcely noticed her. The attention lavished by King James on George scandalized many who watched in horrified fascination as James kissed and fondled the dashing young man. George, a legendary womanizer, had no qualms about using the King’s desire and dependence to his advantage. Kate’s passion for Buckingham made her family uneasy. But Kate, the richest girl in England, was aided by George’s mother who had the young woman kidnapped and forced the marriage, much to Kate’s satisfaction. She coped with Buckingham’s numerous dalliances, his long absences on missions to Europe for both James and his son King Charles, his lavish spending, his huge debts, and his growing unpopularity. His bloody assassination left her devastated. For seven years as a wealthy young widow with a distinguished title, Kate spurned her numerous suitors. At age 32 she became intimately involved with Randal, Earl of Antrim, an Irish nobleman six years her junior and married him when she was already pregnant. With Buckingham, Kate used her influence for good works but with Antrim she had political influence as well. In the growing storm of rebellion and deadly tensions between Catholics and Protestants, Kate was suspected of influencing Antrim to join the rebel side against the King. Through the lens of Kate’s life we get a vivid view of the times, the great political battles and alliances, and the unseen role of women in this rich pageant that spans the first half of the 17th century.
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Non-Fiction
Hugh Brewster Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
The Titanic’s First Class Passengers and Their World
T Praise for Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: “This is one of those rare books on the subject that provides information both new and relevant, in a scholarly readable way. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the social history of the early 20th century.” Library Journal “Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember and James Cameron’s awardwinning movie set the Titanic bar high. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, Hugh Brewster clears that bar with ease and shows again why the story never gets old.” Newark Star Journal “Hugh Brewster’s colourful anecdotes and telling details show how 1912 - with its love-hate affair with celebrity, its romance with technology and contempt for the power of nature - sounds eerily familiar a century later.” Globe and Mail
he wealthy and glamorous passengers who boarded the Titanic, history’s most famous ship, provide “an exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era.” But in most books about the doomed voyage, their stories are incidental to the ship’s collision with an iceberg on April 14, 1912. The cast includes artist and writer Frank Millet, the Director of Decorations for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair; White House aide Archie Butt; John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; and Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon, a leading couturiere, among others. Through these vivid characters, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own. All converge on the boat deck of the Titanic during the ship’s final hours and we become witnesses to a heartbreakingly poignant scene where some survive and some do not. The final chapters recount the rescue of the passengers in lifeboats by the Carpathia and the trip back to New York with only 705 of the more than 2,200 on board. Some men who survived lived under a cloud of cowardice. Others left a remarkable legacy. Hugh Brewster is a former publisher, who has written and produced award-winning books of fiction and non-fiction for children. This is the book about the Titanic tragedy that he wanted to read.
HarperCollins Canada 2012 Crown/Random House US 2012 Gawsewitch France 2012 Piemme Italy 2012 Mondadori/Random House Spain 2012 Robson Press UK 2012 Wydawnictwo Literackie Poland 2013
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History
Tim Brook Mr. Selden’s Map of China Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer
T
his is forensic history at its best, presenting an ancient map reveals the origins of world trade, and surprising twists in China’s history.
“Brook is a true practitioner of the broad, rich and currently endangered concept of the humanities... reads like a perfect day at the library.” Globe and Mail “Alternating between early modern and modern history, England and China, biography, science and culture, Brook holds us spellbound.” Financial Times “King James II is there, witnessing a food fight at the Bodleian in 1687. Ben Jonson appears...The story is full of Chinese pirates and English adventurers. Most fascinating of all, though, is Selden himself...” The Economist “...a fast-moving, conversational narrative, which flies by before you realise you have just been guided through some of the more esoteric aspects of Chinese science or folklore... personal anecdotes and trenchant observations on how the past continues to shape the present—especially when dealing with China.” Literary Review Bloomsbury US 2013 Anansi CAN 2013 Profile UK 2014 Ohta Shuppen Japan 2015 Nermer Books Korea 2016 Wagenbach Germnay 2016
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In 1659, a vast and unusual map of China arrived in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was bequeathed by John Selden, a London business lawyer, political activist, former convict, MP and the city’s first Orientalist scholar. Largely ignored, the map remained in the bowels of the library, until called up by an inquisitive reader. When Timothy Brook saw it in 2009, he realised that the Selden Map was ‘a puzzle that had to be solved’: an exceptional artefact, so unsettlingly modernlooking it could almost be a forgery. But it was genuine, and what it has to tell us is astonishing. It shows China, not cut off from the world, but a participant in the embryonic networks of global trade that fuelled the rise of Europe—and which now powers China’s ascent. It raises as many question as it answers: how did John Selden acquire it? Where did it come from? Who reimagined the world in this way? And most importantly—what can it tell us about the world at that time? Brook, like a cartographic detective, has provided answers—including a surprising last-minute revelation of authorship. From the Gobi Desert to the Philippines, from Java to Tibet and into China itself, Brook uses the map (actually a schematic representation of China’s relation to astrological heaven) to tease out the varied elements that defined this crucial period in China’s history. And it has the compelling John Selden, the epitome of the 17th century renaisance man. Timothy Brook was Shaw Professor of Chinese at Oxford when he first saw the Selden Map, and is now professor of history at the University of British Columbia. The author of eight books on Chinese history, his most widely read book is Vermeer’s Hat, which won the Mark Lynton Prize. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
History
Timothy 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, US Winner: Lynton Prize in History
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
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Michael Dirda, Washington Post
T
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
Health/Nutrition
Aileen Burford-Mason with Judy Stoffman
Eat Well, Age Better
How to use diet and supplements to guard the lifelong health of your eyes, heart, brain, and bones
A
ileen Burford-Mason is a distinguished immunologist and nutritional counsellor who lectures widely to medical professionals and lay audiences while maintaining a private practice in Toronto. Praise for Eat Well, Age Better “In an overfed but undernourished society, this book is a powerful and much-needed reminder that we are, indeed, what we eat. Eat Well, Age Better shows how nutrition is an essential foundation of our physical and mental well-being.” Dr. Gabor Mate, author of When the Body Says No “This book may have been written for the general public but it is a must-read for the medical profession, which has traditionally neglected nutrition as a crucial determinate of health in its curricula for both undergraduate and postgraduate training.” Craig E. Appleyard MD, Chair, Section of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Ontario Medical Association “Reading this book will make you feel excited and empowered to take safe, sensible and medically sound steps to improve your health, including challenges that may once have seemed insurmountable.” Gillian Deacon, author of There’s Lead In Your Lipstick Thomas Allen Can 2012
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Nothing protects your health more effectively than optimal nutrition, she asserts, and she shows you how to achieve it. Our cells are constantly dying and being remade. Whether your “next” body and the following one will be in good working order depends on the quality of the raw materials out of which new cells are built. The nutrients in food used to be able to provide reliable building blocks for cell renewal but contemporary methods of food processing steal micro nutrients, while urban water purification removes essential minerals from our water. Fatigue, sleep disorders, constipation, the condition of hair, skin and nails, mood, colds and flu, and weight gain are signals of nutritional deficits. Similarly, degenerative diseases that can make aging a misery including arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, dementia, muscular degeneration, heart disease and stroke are hastened by nutritional deficits. Aileen Burford-Mason reassures us with clear information and scientific evidence on how to age with health and vigor. After reading this book no one will be able to resist making myriad small changes whether it is applying magnesium gel for cramps and insomnia or taking vitamin D for bone health, or feeling comfortable about adding the right kinds of fat to your diet. Aileen Burford-Mason graduated from University College, Dublin and received a Ph.D in immunology. She is director of a Cancer Research Laboratory at Toronto General Hospital. She has developed a continuing medical education course on the use of diet and nutritional supplements in clinical practice. Learn more at: www.aileenburfordmason.ca Judy Stoffman was book review editor, publishing reporter and arts writer at the Toronto Star for two decades.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Martyn Burke 20b
Martyn Burke works in a multitude of worlds. He is the author of six highly acclaimed novels and co-writer of the classic comedy film Top Secret. As a film and TV producer/director, his dramas and documentaries have been nominated for Emmy’s and Director’s and Writer’s Guild awards. His documentary feature Under-Fire: Journalists in Combat won a 2012 Peabody Award and was short-listed for an Academy Award. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Toronto. Praise for The Truth About the Night
Martyn Burke, a celebrated author and award-winning filmmaker, has crafted a unique and riveting memoir of his journey through what he calls 20b, in effect, a second Twentieth Century that began in 1965 and ended when the planes went into the twin towers on September 11, 2001. 20b was as different from 20a, the other part of the 20th Century, as any two adjacent epochs could be. And at its beginning in a single year—1965, six seminal events occurred, interweaving and building in ferocity over the 36 intervening years, propelling the historic forces that led to 9/11. And Burke’s life, by design and by fate, has constantly been lived at the center of the events that made up 20b. He spent time with the Afghan rebels who were fighting the Russians. He was in Saigon and the jungles of Vietnam. He went joy riding with tyrant Idi Amin in Kampala and lived to write about it. He was in the American south when civil rights battles raged. And he had skirmishes and triumphs in Hollywood.
“Martyn Burke offers a master class in timing and subtlety...the answers come, pulling us into the character’s dilemmas, making us care, keeping us turning the pages...With so much drama, information and emotion packed into fewer than 350 pages. The Truth About the Night remains with you long after the last line is read.” Globe and Mail
“Dividing the course of human events into centuries is like drawing lines through air,” Burke writes. In his examination of the “contrails” of signature events, he creates a cultural map that traces colliding ideologies and signalled an eruption in the world order. Egyptian civil servant Sayyib Qtub’s Milestones rallied dissidents to jihad against the US. Lenny Bruce was tried for uttering obscene words during his famous comedy routine; house-wife Estelle Griswald’s challenged a law preventing access to birth control; Lyndon Johnson struggled to force the laws demanded by the civil rights movement on his fellow southerners; the Catholic Church modernized with Vatican II; and Joseph J. Schildkraut’s challenged Freudian psychiatry with the publication of a single article.
Cormorant CAN 2015
Burke illuminates and invigorates these turning points with sharply observed anecdotes from his own experiences and observations from a front row seat. Welcome to 20B.
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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.
Martyn Burke is the author of six acclaimed novels and cowriter of the classic comedy film Top Secret. As a film and TV producer/director, his dramas and documentaries have received nominations for Emmys and Director’s and Writer’s Guild awards. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Toronto. Praise for The Truth About the Night “Martyn Burke offers a master class in timing and subtlety...the answers come, pulling us into the character’s dilemmas, making us care, keeping us turning the pages...With so much drama, information and emotion packed into fewer than 350 pages. The Truth About the Night remains with you long after the last line is read.” Globe and Mail
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 Liberace music from the mountain peaks. He also displays a giant portrait of the epicene performer fluttering, as though dancing. 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 track her down. 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? The reader wishes them solace and contentment at the end of their journey to hell and back. 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 long-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.
Cormorant CAN 2015 Other Rights Available
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Fiction
Martyn Burke The Commissar’s Report
T Martyn Burke works in a multitude of worlds. He is the author of six highly acclaimed novels and co-writer of the classic comedy film Top Secret. As a film and TV producer/director, his dramas and documentaries have been nominated for Emmys and Director’s and Writer’s Guild awards. His documentary feature Under-Fire: Journalists in Combat won a 2012 Peabody Award and was short-listed for an Academy Award. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Toronto. Praise for The Commisar’s Report “...original…plot is fast and wildly complex and the twists are clever.” People Magazine “...consistently funny, surprising and inventive.” LA Times
he Commissar’s Report, originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1984, is having a wonderful new life. HBO in the US has purchased rights for a T.V. mini-series and Martyn Burke has been commissioned to write the pilot. The novel, set in the Cold War era when Stalin was still alive, was lauded as “a wonder of intense, cinematic storytelling…honest, inventive, and memorable.” (Wall Street Journal). In this witty, comedy where missteps are deadly, Dimitri, a young hero of the Russian Revolution and Kremlin spy is secretly smitten by the sirens of capitalism. His posting to the Soviet consulate in New York is a dream come true. The dream quickly becomes a nightmare. Dimitri’s Soviet boss despises him, his wife is obsessed with the unsocialist pursuit of a Bergdorf ’s charge account, and his boyhood friend is now a CIA agent who stalks him, plotting revenge. On Wall Street, he is plagued by his wild talent for making money in the stock market. His bosses in Red Square would find this difficult to overlook if they knew. And, as Dimitri fears, the old men of the Kremlin have a dangerous habit of knowing everything, sooner or later. Burke creates a unique and highly entertaining tale of dark humor and rich understanding that is timeless. Martyn Burke, acclaimed novelist, screen writer, director and documentary film producer has a new novel, Music for Love or War scheduled for publication March 2015.
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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
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andy Stoppard is not renowned for her quivering sensitivity. That may have been an advantage in her job as a detective with the Kitchener Police Dept., but when she fails office politics, she is bounced to Victims’ Services to help those impacted by crime. But Sandy can’t let go of loose ends from her previous case. Although the accused serial killer, known as the Riverside Basher, is in custody, Sandy is still obsessed about strange details surrounding him and his life. She also secretly searches dumpsters and landfill for the missing body parts of a little girl kidnap victim from a cold case. Grisly aspects of the work don’t torment Sandy whose own childhood bruises are a bridge to life’s dark side. She fears nothing except intimacy. Yet, Sandy allows her armor to be pierced 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 whose parents are clients of Sandy at VS. Laurie Channer reserves her most terrifying twist for the end when the real Riverside Basher is revealed. In Laurie Channer’s skillful rendering, this police procedural soars beyond genre to become a spellbinding tale layered with fascinating detail and psychological insight.
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Fiction
Ann Charney Life Class
Life Class, Ann Charney’s beautiful and wry novel, portrays the allure and dangers of the expatriate life where its charms become traps. Ann Charney’s novels Distantly Related to Freud, Dobryd and Rousseau’s Garden were published in the US, Canada, France, Germany and Italy. She was born in Poland, studied at McGill University and the Sorbonne, and lives in Montreal. The government of France named her Officier de l’Ordre Arts et des Lettres. Praise for Life Class: “Charney writes in spare, tight prose, setting a brisk pace for a lively plot line and the introduction of intriguing characters...Life Class is an inspiring affirmation of life after loss.”
Montreal Gazette
“Charney moves us from place to place with cinematic dash... Charney takes us into a community of expatriates in Venice, describes a marriage of convenience, details the sadness of post-industrial American towns and satirizes the pretensions of the art world.”
National Post
Nerina, a refugee from Sarajevo, has her first brush with the sophisticated foreigners of Venice when she is struggling to survive by working in a hair salon and posing nude for a life class in drawing. Meanwhile, she is plotting to exchange her life at the margins for a better life in America. Her gateway to the plush world is Helena who has lived in Venice for many years, cobbling together an existence by ferreting out people with skills useful to privileged expatriates. Through Helena, Nerina becomes a housekeeper for the Ohlstroms, a wealthy American couple. When they are called back to New York, Nerina finds herself sharing their house with one of their friends, Walter Scalin, a gay expat sliding toward homelessness. Faced with destitution in Venice, Walter decides to return to the US to occupy the house in the Adirondacks he has inherited from his grandparents. He offers to marry Nerina and to take her with him, as her best hope for realizing her American dream. From married life and a job as a cashier in Smiths Falls to work in Manhattan’s gallery scene is a quick leap for the nimble Nerina, thanks to Helena’s help once again. Nerina doesn’t realize it but an impromptu trip to Montreal with her new love interest, a Canadian artist named Christophe who takes her to Montreal is a turning point, saving her from a rootless life at the edges. She has no illusions about the art world which rumbles with greed beneath the camouflage of glamor, but when she aimlessly wanders into Gallery Sarajevo, lured only by the name, her ambition for a gallery of her own crystallizes. Investment comes from a surprising source. Helena, Nernina and their friends serve as a life class in resourcefulness for a world in flux.
Cormorant CAN 2013
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Non-fiction
Tiffany Chow The Memory Clinic
U
Dr. Tiffany Chow is Senior Clinician-Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, staff Behavioural Neurologist at Baycrest’s Brain Health Centre Memory Disorders Clinic and holds a dual appointment as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Geriatric Psychiatry with the University of Toronto. She studied or trained variously at Stanford, Rush Medical College, UCLA, and was Clinical Core Director at the University of Southern California Alzheimer’s Research Center with a research program for frontotemporal dementia. Her current research focuses on behavioural disturbances brought on by dementia as well as their apparent opposite, apathy, and how these symptoms relate to brain chemistry as seen with functional neuroimaging. Learn more at: research.baycrest.org/tchow “This book is the wise and compassionate friend you desperately want when you discover that you or someone you love has dementia.”
“ nless you are planning to die before age 65, you too are at risk for dementia, regardless of family history.” This is the sobering observation of Dr. Tiffany Chow, a prominent clinician and researcher in dementia. Yet Dr. Chow also offers knowledge and hope for an illness where there is, as yet, no cure. “This book is a summary of what I’ve learned through my research or from my colleagues about prevention and management of dementia,” she says. “Despite facing a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, there are things that those at risk can do to prevent its onset or progression.” Through her grandmother Ah Quan, born in 1906 in Hawaii of Chinese ancestry, she too, has a genetic legacy for Alzheimer’ s disease. Comparing her life to grandmother’s life, Tiffany probes what she and other women can do mitigate the impact of genetics, through nutrition, exercise, and the concepts of cerebral reserve and brain plasticity. But it is in her front-line role managing the suffering caused by dementia and aiding caregivers where Tiffany’s compassionate voice soars. She notes four goals for caregivers to address each day with the afflicted. Do I feel safe? Do I feel healthy? Do I feel happy? Do I feel loved? Taking action if at least one answer is “no” requires honesty and a higher integration with others. To answer yes to all four questions demonstrates skill at balancing life and is itself part of the protective shield against dementia’s effects. Tiffany Chow, an empathic physician and an accomplished scientist is a reassuring guide through the mysterious twists of the brain and the grace of loving relationships flowering in adversity.
Ruth Ozeki
Penguin Canada 2013
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Self-Help
Stacey Dombrowsky Food, Sex and You From Addiction to Recovery
Stacey Dombrowsky is a registered psychotherapist based in Toronto, and the former host of the live TV show Mind Matters. She is a passionate spokesperson for mental-health issues and has a large following in social media. She has been the subject of numerous print articles and has been asked to host a new TV Show to be called Food, Sex and You.
Food, Sex and You is for every woman who feels uncomfortable about her body, who obsesses about her weight; who hides her eating habits; who turns to food for comfort; who yo-yo diets; who avoids mirrors; who weighs herself too often; who binges; who uses laxatives, vomits or over-exercises; who has been told by worried friends that she’s too thin; who is facing health issues related to obesity; who has been diagnosed with an eating disorder. Food, Sex and You is also for every woman who has avoided sex because she felt ashamed of her body; who undresses in the bathroom and has sex in the dark; who hides her sexual self inside layers of fat; who fears the predatory instincts of all men; who believes that owning her sexuality may turn her into a slut; who feels cheated of intimacy because of alienation from her physical self. It’s for women who fail to set safe emotional and physical boundaries in their sexual relationships in their over-desire to please; who always choose the wrong partners; who have become addicted to sex to fill the vacuum inside themselves. Stacey is a beautiful young woman who overcame food addiction and her fear of intimacy with the help of support groups like Overeaters Anonymous, various therapies, treatment for her ADHD, and Eastern spiritual practices such as tantric sex. She also became a registered therapist herself, specializing in addictions, bringing her deep understanding of the issues to help her clients. Stacey reports that in 2007, at age thirty-two, she gave up bingeing as the culmination of her healing journey. Stacey has written this book with the assistance of celebrated author Sylvia Fraser.
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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
History
“Eksteins is as gifted a stylist as he is a scholar. One reads it with fascination and intellectual gratitude.” Alfred Kazin
Modris Eksteins
Modris Eksteins
Rites of Spring
Walking Since Daybreak
The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
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his classic, award-winning book, in print “…a witty and enterpris- since 1989, is celebrated by ing scholar” scholars and readers alike. It Kurt Vonnegut even inspired a Hollywood “...nothing less than a film, Max, starring John retrospective of our en- Cusack. tire century. Art and politics, dance and war, have never been the same. ...It is the start of a new history.”
“The Great War was the psychological turning point for modernism,” argues Eksteins. “The urge to creJames Carroll ate and the urge to destroy “This provocative and had changed places.” disturbing reappraisal of modernism rings with authority.” Publishers Weekly
Winner Trillium Award Macmillan UK 2000 OP Houghton Mifflin USA 1989 Knopf /Can 2012 Dogan Turkey 2014 Rowohlt Ger 1990/OP Plon France 1990 OP TBS Britannica Japan Editora Rocco Brazil Standard Uitgeverij Holland PIW Poland Geulhangari Korea Editorial Pre-Textos Spain Social Sciences Academic Press China
With originality and discerning historical analysis, he describes the origins, impact, and aftermath of WWI from the premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913, to the final dance by the denizens of Hitler’s bunker in 1945. This is a remarkable cultural history that redefines the way we look at our past and think about the future.
“A deeply moving and intellectually challenging view of modern history.” Los Angeles Times
“...a beautiful meditation, written with both intellectual and moral urgency.”
n his journey to 1945 and the firestorm in Berlin, Eksteins weaves the story of his family in Latvia into the major events of the era, merging the subjectivity of the modern style with the objectivity of the scholar.
Empire, war, communism, fascism, the Holocaust, Publishers Weekly genocide, the huge tide of European refuges, New “...an important reas- World immigration, freesessment of WWII and dom...These are the markers its outcome...provaca- of our turbulent age. tive and ambitious.”
Kirkus Reviews
Awards Winner Pearson Literary Prize
Standaart Nthlds 2007 Houghton Mifflin US1999 Macmillan UK 2000 OP Key Porter Canada 1999 Atena Latvia 2002
Born in Latvia, Eksteins arrived as a child in 1950 among the displaced in Canada. He surveys the wreckage from two angles: by looking back from 1989 and the collapse of the Berlin Wall and, at the same time, moving forward from the perspective of the 19th century borderlands between Russia and Germany. It is an astute and thrilling panorama from the imperial age of coherence to our current confusions and fragmented logic.
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Fiction
Laurie Elmquist Pike Bay Lodge
Winner of the Random House of Canada Student Award in Writing (2009) Photo by Ryan Rock
Advance Praise for Pike Bay Lodge “This novel brims with the details of a certain landscape (and its flora and fauna). With quiet confidence, Laurie Elmquist explores the lives of those who live in this special place. The characters throb with their own distinctiveness. The depiction of Lily, the heroine, is unforgettable. A fine first novel.” Alistair MacLeod “There is an engaging immediacy to Elmquist’s work and her appreciative eye for the natural world is both educational and poetic.” Dede Crane author of Poster Boy Laurie Elmquist teaches creative writing at Camosun College in Victoria, BC. She spent her summers as a teen working at a vacation lodge in Ontario, the setting of her novel, Pike Bay Lodge. Learn more at: laurieelmquist.blogspot.com sites.google.com/site/elmquistl Manuscript Available
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S
ixteen-year-old Lil Booth is rarely excited by the arrival of guests at her family’s summer resort. It means more towels to be folded, more dishes to be washed, and her life disrupted. But this year, Lil eagerly awaits the arrival of lodge regular Oliver Kribbs, a biology professor at the University of Guelph. Kribbs has made Lil his protégé, inviting her to join him on excursions with his group of naturalists, and welcoming her help in their campaign to save the Eastern Loggerhead Shrikes. When Lil discovers a nest of the endangered songbirds, she sees an opportunity to capture Kribbs’ affection and a future in ornithology. Her brother Jeff, who has been Lil’s rock, is suspicious of Kribbs, but Lil dismisses his warnings. Jeff’’s behaviour has been increasingly erratic and he is acting out by drinking, stealing motorbikes, and playing dead in the middle of the street. When Jeff skips out on one of Lil’s driving lessons, his friend Jimmy Lick volunteers to fill in. Unaccustomed to Jimmy’s careful attention, Lil begins to see her brother’s friend in a new light. But all thoughts of romance are pushed aside when Jeff is arrested and Jimmy Lick fails to share the responsibility. Unable to forgive Jimmy Lick, Lil reaches out to Kribbs, only to discover that he has taken credit for her work. The family crisis signaled by Jeff’s behavior captures her parents’ attention, and is a catalyst for change. In the process, Lil gains their trust and confidence. That summer of heartbreak at Pike Bay Lodge is also the summer of Lil’s growth and strength. In Pike Bay Lodge, Laurie Elmquist has written a sensitive and moving story about family struggle, love and self-discovery. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Mystery
Howard Engel City of Fallen Angels A Mike Ward Mystery
I Winner of The Crime Writers of Canada’s Grand Master Award
t’s 1940, Europe is at war, and Canadian journalist Mike Ward, who has spent 20 years covering the major upheavals in Paris, London, Moscow, and Berlin, is removed from the main action. He is posted to Los Angeles where news is mostly celebrity gossip churned out by movie studios.
“Mr Engel is a born writer, a natural stylist...This is a writer who can bring a character to life in a few lines.”
Mike is not happy. He came of age in Hemingway’s Paris of the 1920s, got close ups of the rise of fascist dictators, wrote about the fall of governments, and watched while the war dreams began to beat louder.
“Engel can turn a phrase as neatly as Chandler...Benny Cooperman novels [are] first-class entertainment, stylishly written, the work of an original, distinctive, and distinctively Canadian talent.”
He can’t imagine that the movie business will be as compelling. But Hollywood is a place where the glitz and glamor of the silver screen meet the grit and grime of the criminal underworld. Mike has barely unpacked when the big story lands in his lap—the “suicide” of studio executive, Mark Norman. Some suspect Norman was killed by his first wife, but as Mike follows the trail through a thicket of enemies, other possibilities emerge.
Ruth Rendell
Julian Symons
“Benny Cooperman is a lot of fun to hang out. I’m delighted to see him getting into trouble again.”
Donald E. Westlake
“Engel’s storytelling skills are firmly in place in Murder in Montparnasse, immersing the reader in the expatriate rive gauche atmosphere... Murder in Montparnasse is a success for both Engel and the reader.”
The Ottawa Citizen
“a Canadian icon of the mystery genre.”
Toronto Star
Cormorant CAN 2014
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Along the way, the personable journalist befriends Errol Flynn who guides him through Hollywood’s intrigue. Soon Mike is partying with John Barrymore, lunching at Chasen’s, escorting young starlets, and tangling with cops over his efforts to get the story. Set during a time of upheaval in the capital of cinema, and populated by a who’s who of colourful historical personalities from both the film and criminal worlds, City of Fallen Angels—the latest from Arthur Ellis Award-winner Howard Engel—is a classic period whodunnit. Howard Engel is on the shortlist for the Libris Award for Lifetime Achievement. His novels have been published in more than countries since his debut in 1980 and have won literary prizes. Two have been adapted for TV films. He is well known for his Benny Cooperman series of mystery novels and his memoir, The Man Who Forgot how to Read, about dealing with the affects of a stroke that nearly ended his writing career. 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
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Fiction
Terry Fallis No Relation
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
Fiction
Terry Fallis Up and Down
Winner 2013 Evergreen Award “Up and Down kept me smiling, made me laugh out loud, and occasionally moved me to tears.”
--The National Post
“If Terry Fallis talks like he writes, then I want to meet this man because he is very droll indeed.”
--Montreal Gazette
“In Landon Percival, Terry Fallis brings to vivid life an unexpected hero–tough yet endearing, brave yet vulnerable.”
Cathy Marie Buchanan, New York Times bestselling author
“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 Guardians
“Terry Fallis has done it again. Up and Down is another hilarious page-turner that also packs an emotional punch.” Ali Velshi
“A rollicking good ride. Funny one moment, serious the next, always compelling: a reminder that we can all dream.” Marc Garneau, Former astronaut
D
avid Stewart’s first days on the job are not auspicious. He has just joined the Toronto office of an international public relations firm, ruled from New York and Washington. David is assigned to the crossborder team on the NASA account, which is charged with boosting flagging public interest in space exploration. His team leader, the chilly Amanda Burke, is immune to his charms. The tough Washington account exec is equally dismissive. Surprisingly, the NASA client approves David’s suggestion—a lottery to find two ordinary citizens, a Canadian and American who are eager to strap themselves to a rocket headed to the space station for the trip of a lifetime. Through a series of suspenseful hurdles, Fallis keeps us laughing and rooting for David and the “aged” would-be astronaut Landon Percival. But it is the beautifully drawn portrayal of Landon and their touching relationship that stay with the reader long after the book is closed on the campaign. Terry Fallis is a novelist who has done the impossible. He self-published his first novel The Best Laid Plans, a political satire set in Ottawa, which won the Leacock Medal for Humour, and later, after it was released by M&S/Random House Canada, it was winner of Canada Reads as “the essential Canadian novel of the decade.” A 6-part TV mini-series based on it airs on CBC TV in January 2014. His fourth novel No Relation, set in New York and Chicago, is a highly original tale on the question of what’s in a name. In his other life, Terry works in public relations, and is hugely popular on the speaking circuit, with more than 100 appearances annually. He lives in Toronto, is married and the father of two sons.
McClelland/Random Can/ Can 2012
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Fiction
Terry Fallis
Terry Fallis
The Best Laid Plans
The High Road
Winner of 2011 Canada Reads
Short-listed for Leacock Medal for Humour
Over 102,000 copies sold Globe & Mail Bestseller Amazon.ca Bestseller “It deftly explores the Machiavellian machinations of political culture.”
D
isillusioned by politics and lacerated by romantic betrayal, Daniel Addison, a young political speechwriter, wants out.
Forced to barter his lost ideGlobe & Mail alism with one last obligation, he cajoles a sacrificial “The Best Laid Plans has a candidate to contest the certain charm, some clevelection for the opposition er turns of phrase and a party well-honed appreciation for the absurdities of political life.”
Montreal Gazette
“The plot is advanced with self-deprecating and side-splitting vignettes... The novel is that and much more.” Silhouette’s A&E Magizine
Terry Fallis first selfpublished The Best Laid Plans as a podcast, then as a book. It was later acquired by McClelland & Stewart. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour 2008 McClelland & Stewart 2008
T
“…a new brand of pohis deeply funny satire litical satire -- the most continues the story of irreverent, sophisticated Honest Angus McLintock, and engaging CanLit has seen since Stephen an amateur politician who dares to do the unthinkable: Leacock.” Winnipeg Free Press
tell the truth.
Just when Daniel Addison thinks he can escape his job as a political aide, Angus McLintock, the no-hope candidate he helped into Parliament, throws icy water Daniel persuades Angus over his plans. Angus has just McLintock, a crusty EnOttawa Citizen brought down the governgineering Professor to alment with a deciding vote. low his name to be used. “The High Road will Now he wants Daniel to It will be a campaign with entertain. There will manage his next campaign. no signs, no rallies, no be snickers, occasional speeches, and no budget. snorting and hooting, Daniel helps Angus fight an Campaign headquarters is and almost certainly rip- uphill battle against “Flameroaring belly laughs.” Daniel’s jalopy. thrower” Fox, notorious for Chronicle Herald his dirty tactics. Together But politics is filled with they decide to take “The surprises. Angus is cata- Terry Fallis is a part- High Road” and turn the pulted to victory and he ner in Thornley Fallis, race into a nail-biter with hiand Daniel must examine a public relations com- larious ups and downs, This their political principles pany in Toronto, and is deft political satire and and learn how to survive is completing his third laugh-out-loud comedy. novel. the political process, the roughest game around. Six part TV mini-series telecast on CBC TV.
“an easy-reading page turner...anyone with even a passing or cynical interest in the political process should enjoy The High Road and after the romp be left with some food for thought.”
McClelland & Stewart Fall 2010
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Fiction
Joanna Goodman Breedy’s Will
H Praise for You Made Me Love You “You Made Me Love You is a wonderful novel, full of humour, wisdom, and hope.”
Joy Fielding
“I love this novel. It has a wonderful, warm, true sensibility. I couldn’t put it down and was sorry when it ended.” Eliza Clark
Praise for Harmony “Joanna Goodman is such a fine, polished writer. Harmony is an honest heart-wrenching and complex look at the tangled emotions and lives of both mothers and wives.”
Michelle Berry
“Goodman’s solid writing is permeated with commentary on the societal pressures to have it all.”
Publishers Weekly
olly Moore, a widowed mother of four small children, living in Brooklyn, is still adjusting to her husband’s sudden death when she receives a phone call from a mysterious lawyer. He offers her an opportunity to inherit millions from her husband’s half siblings—the wealthy, powerful Breedy brothers. Holly is shocked. She had no idea that her husband Scott had any connection to the prominent New York Breedys. As she becomes aware of the obstacles, she faces the likelihood of mounting debt in her pursuit of the Breedy fortune. And she faces the danger of falling prey to the same obsession that afflicted her husband in her need to provide for her children. There are also the troubling details of Scott’s death by drowning. Questions abound: Was it an accident, suicide, or foul play? Who is the woman seen fleeing the scene? What other secrets was Scott keeping from her? Was her happy marriage a sham? Holly must decide if she will sacrifice everything to vindicate her husband’s claim to his birthright. In an ode to Dickens’ Bleak House, Breedy’s Will is a courtroom drama, a murder mystery and love story. Joanna Goodman is the author of You Made Me Love You and Harmony, published by Penguin in Canada and NAL in the US. Her first novel Belle of the Bayou, a satirical odyssey, was published by Porcupine’s Quill. Joanna, who is a partner in an upscale linen business Au Lit, lives in Toronto with her husband and their two children.
“Joanna Goodman writes with compassion about human connections.”
Patti Henry
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Fiction
Joanna Goodman The Seed Man’s Daughter
I
n this triumphant love story, the lives of two young people are beset by conflicts of class and culture in 1950’s Quebec.
Praise for You Made Me Love You “You Made Me Love You is a wonderful novel, full of humour, wisdom, and hope.”
Joy Fielding
“I love this novel. It has a wonderful, warm, true sensibility. I couldn’t put it down and was sorry when it ended.”
Eliza Clark
Praise for Harmony “Joanna Goodman is such a fine, polished writer. Harmony is an honest heart-wrenching and complex look at the tangled emotions and lives of both mothers and wives.” Michelle Berry
“Goodman’s solid writing is permeated with commentary on the societal pressures to have it all.”
Publishers Weekly
“Joanna Goodman writes with compassion about human connections.”
Patti Henry
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. Her mother Hortense is a French-Canadian who refuses to speak English, but who shares her husband’s ambitions that her children should prosper in the higher status Anglo world. Gabriel Lafleur, the boy from the next farm, poor and orphaned, captures Maggie’s heart. He departs for the factories of Montreal where he becomes caught up in the nationalist and revolutionary fervor protesting the hardline rulers. When Maggie becomes pregnant at 15, either because of a rape or her love affair with Gabriel, she too feels the full tyranny inflicted by regime and the Catholic Church. Her baby is taken from her, and either sold by the nuns to an American family, or 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.) 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 time 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 three acclaimed novels. She lives in Toronto with her two children and her husband where they operate upscale retail linen shops Au Lit.
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Parenting
Lyndsay Green Teens Gone Wired Are You Ready?
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Lyndsay Green is a sociologist and authority on communications technologies for learning. She has worked with groups as diverse as the World Bank, the National Film Board and the Inuit of Canada. Green is Chair of the Board of Arts for Children and Youth, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the University of Toronto Art Centre. The American textbook Computers and Information Systems calls Green an “information agent of the future.” Learn more at: www.lyndsaygreen.com
hen deep social change reshapes our lives, social mores often take time to catch up. This book offers a moral framework for parents and teens on how to cope and how to behave within the exciting and game-changing social phenomenon of technology. The digital revolution has left many parents feeling intimidated by the world their teens inhabit and they worry that they lack the experience to parent effectively. Teens Gone Wired: Are You Ready? examines today’s parenting challenges from the totality of the teen experience: the teen mind, the social teen, the teen spirit, the teen citizen, the teen body, and the teen-parent connection. The book combines advice from dozens of parents with a wealth of recommended sources, including links to the many support systems to be found online. By recounting stories from parents who’ve been there and providing practical tips, the book shores up parents’ confidence and gives them the tools they need to raise today’s teens. The book’s real-world perspective is enhanced by dialogues between parents and teens, as well as input from teens and former teens who offer their advice to parents. Parents have a critical role in mediating their teens’ experiences with both the digital and the real world. Moreover, they must confront their own relationships with these worlds. The book gains its clear-eyed perspective from the author’s decades of experience as a consultant in learning technologies and as a mother of two former teens who never knew a day before computers. While the book is unflinching in acknowledging the trials that parents face today, it supports the author’s optimism that parents are not only capable of doing a good job, they can have fun along the way. Lyndsay Green is author of the bestselling You Could Live a Long Time: Are you Ready?
Thomas Allen Canada 2012
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Catherine Graham Quarry
C Catherine Graham, who holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University (UK), teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is the author of four critically acclaimed poetry collections. She studied with Alistair MacLeod who described her as a “unqiuely wonderful” writer “whose insights will soon inspire the world.” Learn more at: www.catherinegraham.com Advance Praise for Quarry “Slim and searing, gentle yet tough, Quarry is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age novel about loss, identity, and a woman’s freedom to choose life over death.” Ibi Kaslik
“Quarry flows through the legacies and layers of grief, and emerges into the joy and shock of discovery. It is a wonderful book.” Ken Murray
“a coming of age story, a family story, and a story of secrets...teems with life and its complexities just below the shining surface.”
Grace O’Connell
aitlin Maharg is only 19 when her mother dies. Her teenage years of swimming in her beloved limestone quarry, of summer jobs, of lust and longing are played out against the drumbeat of her mother’s painful and inexorable death. Permeating the atmosphere is Caitlin’s uneasy relationship with her doting father Don, a handsome salesman, a “romancer” who prefers fabrication to truth. Caitlin’s grandmother, a toxic presence in the sickroom, is cold, disdainful of Don, and vengeful. She is the guardian of the family secret which she will wield like a cudgel. But the winsome Caitlin is not without resources on her path to maturity. A caring boyfriend at university, and a relationship with a married professor offer shelter. And there is Linda, her father’s girlfriend who is there for her when tragedy strikes again and Don is killed in an auto accident. In time, seeking to honor her parents’ wishes to be buried together, Caitlin summons the confidence to confront her grandmother in a scene that explodes the bitter secret to a fine powder. Catherine Graham, a poet with a gift for comic drama, layers her tale like the open pit mine for which the novel is named. Don takes Caitlin to New York for father-daughter bonding after her mother’s death, but then allows Linda to join them in the same room where they form an awkwardly shaped triangle. Graham’s dark humor also is evident in scenes of Caitlin’s freshman year with her roommate who is known for “room service.” Graham weaves spare, lyrically-charged prose to create a hypnotic coming-of-age story of loss, family shame, illicit relationships, and, finally, affirmation. In Caitlin, she has given us a brave young woman, forged by flawed, loving parents who have sent her into the world alone but strong.
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Historical Mysteries Don Gutteridge: Rebellion Mysteries
Turncoat This series captures life in British North America in the 1830s under the reign of Queen Victoria. Americans
eyed Canada for annexation and Canadians agitated for autonomy from both Britain and the United States. Marc Edwards, a dashing London barrister, bored with legal studies joins the British army in 1835 and is posted to Fort York in Toronto, no place for glory. But Marc is asked by the governor to investigate a murder. Was it a political killing by rebels trying to oust British masters? Or was it personal? His loyalty to the British Crown becomes complicated when he falls in love with Beth, a Reformer and he finds his sympathies drifting. Marc solves the crimes but romance awaits.
Solemn Vows
The second in the Rebellions Mysteries opens with Marc’s humiliation in pursuit of an assassin and the murder of a prominent politician during a public rally. The investigation takes Marc from the offices of the rebels struggling against the British rulers to the mansions of the ruling elite. And it takes him into the lives and bedrooms of several charming ladies. “...terrific historical series... Gutteridge knows his history and how to build and pace a mystery novel... he weave his tale perfectly with believable characters and perfect scene setting.” --Globe and Mail
Vital Secrets
Marc Edwards, our dashing hero, is posted at Toronto’s Fort York in 1837. The arrival of theatrical troupe touring the British colony north of the American border promises light diversion. But events turn nasty when his friend Rick Hilliard falls for a young actress and is accused of murdering his rival for her affections. Marc’s investigation reveals the victim was selling smuggled American rifles to local rebels agitating for the expulsion of the British. Was the murder prompted by politics or passion? Marc’s involvement with the theater company also yields an astounding revelation about the secret of Marc’s own identity.
Dubious Allegiance
Autumn 1837, Lieutenant Marc Edwards is sent with his British regiment to subdue increasingly hostile French rebels in what later became Quebec. The brutality causes Marc to question whether the sacrifices he has made in the British Crown have been worth the cost. On his return to Toronto, Marc is accompanied by a group of seemingly innocent civilians. It becomes clear that some of his fellow travellers are not who they claim to be and Marc is the target of an unknown assassin. When a member of the group is found murdered, Marc realizes he may have more than one killer to worry about.
Bloody Relations
After being injured on the battlefields of Quebec, Marc Edwards is dissillusioned with life in the military and quits to start a family with his new wife. Lord Durham has been sent out to find a resolution to the fighting plaguing Britain’s North American Colonies. The ruling elite of the colonies resort to crime in an attempt to keep power for themselves, and it’s up to Marc to uncover their plot and ensure peace and stability for the land he has come to call home. “A novel that is so swift, humane, vividly written, and valuable, even for those not ordinarily much interested in historical fiction of any sort.” --The London Free Press
Death of a Patriot
Even after trading in his soldier’s uniform for a lawyer’s robes, Marc Edwards is called upon to help protect his new home. An American officer is wounded and captured after a border skirmish and before he can be tried and executed he’s found murdered in his cell. Marc is convinced that the young soldier accused is innocent, and must navigate a web of spies and the paranoia gripping the colony in the face of an imminent attack. “With the help of a dramatic trial sequence, Death of a Patriot once again delivers the goods, setting things up for Marc Edwards’ next series turn.” --National Post
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Non-Fiction
David Healy Pharmageddon
P
harmageddon has arrived. The large pharmaceutical companies have hijacked healthcare and the results are alarming.
Praise for Pharmageddon: “Neuropharmacologist David Healy’s exposé of the pharmaceutical industry’s control of modern medicine is a chilling, essential read.”
Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many antidepressants, presents a searing indictment of problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Also, often culpable are wellmeaning physicians who under the sway of drug companies diagnose for risks using “numbers” handed to them.
“It is the most powerful critique of the contemporary medical-industrial complex that I know.” Andrew T. Scull author of Hysteria and Madness
Only a small percentage of drugs now target disease. The bestselling drugs are “lifestyle” or “risk management” drugs: antidepressants, cholesterol-lowing statins, blood-sugar-lowering hypoglycemics, and treatments for osteoporosis and sexual dysfunction. Moreover, many newer generations of drugs under patent are often less effective than earlier versions.
MacClean’s Magazine (Named a best non-fiction book of 2012)
“Pharmageddon is Healy’s most important book to date. It will make a real contribution towards healing our sick system of pharmaceutical-driven medicine and helping doctors provide better care for their patients.” Elizabeth Siegel Watkins author of The Estrogen Elixir “[Pharmageddon] is provocative, challenging, and informative, and ultimately it serves as a powerful manifesto for rethinking modern medicine.” Robert Whitaker author of Anatomy of an Epidemic
The survival of pharmaceutical companies is tied to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. He is also critical of industry-controlled drug trials and the corrupted “evidence-based medical system.” These trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. Dr. Healy concludes with suggestions for reform, which must come soon. David Healy is Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University in Britain, a former Secretary of the British Association for Psycho-pharmacology, and the author of more than 20 books and 350 artciles. He has written seminial histories of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and bipolar disorder.
U of California Press World English March 2012 Misuzu Shobo Japan 2014
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Fiction
Kate Hilton The Hole In the Middle
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. She raises two boys, cooks, collects art, reads voraciously, writes novels and likes her husband. “The pacing is fast, the suspense is strong from start to finish.” Roberta Rich
“A story that continually entertains.”
Leah Eichler
“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
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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S
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, troubleshoot 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 had 13,000 downloads when Kate published it herself on Amazon as an eBook. It was sold to HarperCollins Canada, became a Walmart “read of the month” and has 20,000 copies in print in Canada. Kate is completing her second novel about two adult siblings— a brother and sister—whose mother summons them to the family cottage. The reunion triggers a series of interlocking memories— secret affairs, betrayed loyalties, lost loves, sexual awakenings, professional successes and personal failures— leading back to the family tragedy that shaped their every choice. With sharp observational humour and deep poignancy, Kate Hilton explores themes of midlife disappointment, human connection, and memory’s power both to wound, and, ultimately, to heal.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Tod Hoffman Al Qaeda Declares War The African Embassy Bombings and America’s Search for Justice
T Tod Hoffman, author of four books, was an officer with The Canadian Security Intelligence Service for eight years. His most recent book is The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China’s Penetration of the CIA. He lives in Montreal. “Hoffman, a former Canadian intelligence officer, presents a successful, suggestive, and significantly overlooked operation in the U.S. war on terrorism.” Publisher’s Weekly
Praise for The Spy Within: “The hunt is electrifying... Hoffman’s knowledge of the espionage business [is] shared with us in vivid writing...The Spy Within illuminate[s] the thicket of deception, mis-direction and confusion that is the high-stakes real-world game of spy vs. spy.”
hree years before the events of 9/11, Osama bin Laden sent al Qaeda suicide bombers to destroy the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That dark day, August 7, 1998, more than 200 people were killed and thousands were wounded. Responding immediately, the FBI launched the largest international investigation in its history. Within months suspects were arrested in six countries. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted 22 individuals, including the elusive bin Laden. In February 2000, a landmark trial of four of the accused was held in Manhattan in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Tod Hoffman masterfully recounts the organization behind the 1998 terrorist operation and the horrible carnage it caused. He also reveals the dogged efforts of investigators to gather evidence and elicit statements from suspects by tried and true procedures. The trial makes for a gripping courtroom drama where the robust principles of American justice confront the fanaticism of true believers. This process is a marked contrast to the illegal detention, torture and abrogation of rights that followed 9/11. Moreover, it is this case that established the legal basis for hunting down bin Laden. Reverberations from the African embassy bombings continue, with the on-going hunt for perpetrators still at large, targeted killings by drones, and the extradition of two additional suspects from Britain in 2012, who are expected to come to trial in 2013.
Montreal Gazette
UPNE North America 2014
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Blanche Howard The Ice Maiden
Blanche Howard’s previous works include The Manipulator, which won the Canadian Booksellers’ Award, Penelope’s Way, and A Celibate Season which she co-wrote with Carol Shields and Dreaming in a Digital World. Her book A Memoir of Friendship: The Letters Between Blanche Howard and Carol Shields (Penguin Canada) was released in 2007 to wide acclaim. She lives in Vancouver. Praise for Blanche Howard: “Penelope’s Way moves along at quite a clip with its layered stories and curious characters; although it was most satisfying, I found it ended far too soon. So I’ll read it again. Soon.” Globe & Mail “[A] dialogue of grace and generosity...It is also surprisingly gripping, propelled by suspense” Quill & Quire
Connie Brewster has traveled to London from her home in Calgary for the triumph of her career — the receipt of the Man Booker prize for her novel The Ice Maiden. For the gala event, she is accompanied by her handsome husband, Graham, and their two delightful, grown children. On leaving the historic Guildhall, with the prize money tucked in her purse, the Brewsters are caught in a swarm of protesters. Gunfire rings out, Connie is wounded in the chest and her irrepressible, athletic, 18year old son, Eliot suffers a severe injury resulting in the loss of his leg. From that shocking beginning, Blanche Howard layers a tale of physical recovery, the death of illusion, and a reversal of values. Connie’s lengthy stay in a London hospital prompts her to see Graham and their marriage in a new light. Graham, stranded on foreign shores, deprived of his bed-rock belief in the social value of extracting oil from tar sands, is vulnerable to the charms of an aristocratic, British beauty and noted environmental activist. Lucille Goodwin, Connie’s literary agent who has piloted her career, and who loves Connie devotedly, is devastated when a rudderless Graham abruptly fires her to take over the job of managing Connie’s affairs. Blanche Howard also is enormously skilled in portraying Connie as a major writer by weaving in scenes from Connie’s novel The Ice Maiden. She also is wickedly and deliciously entertaining as an observer of society and human nature. Blanche Howard, author of several novels, short stories, plays and a memoir, died in 2014 at the age of 90.
“Howard — late bloomer though she may be — is clearly someone to watch.” The Vancouver Sun, 2000 Manuscript Available www.slopenagency.com
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Mystery
Mary Jackman Finger Food
A
Praise for Spoiled Rotten: “Liz Walker, [is] a lively and believable character... and grabs your attention. She’s a gem.” The Star Phoenix
“Jackman’s entertaining debut, centered on a cozy Toronto bistro, is sure to appeal to anyone interested in the restaurant business.”
Publisher’s Weekly
“Spoiled Rotten is Light summer fare that also makes one salivate with all its talk of food... fun and full of drama.”
Halifax Chronicle Herald
severed finger is delivered to Walker’s Way Bistro in a lettuce crate. The police soon discover it belongs to Norman Fitzgerald, a recent murder victim found in a crop circle. The macabre story is leaked to the press and the restaurant fills up with diners dressed in Martian costumes. Business is business and Richard Best, manager of the Walkers can’t believe their good fortune. Liz Walker, the owner, is not so sure. Liz, curious about the crop circle, visits the farm and receives a brutal welcome. She is attacked, her friend Ramona disappears and Alex Silva, Ramona’s husband, is murdered. The most interesting resident, and possible suspect, is Ramona’s lover John Mackinnon, a country playboy with a penchant for married women. Liz is susceptible to John’s entreaties to find Ramona and help clear him of charges. The adventure beats sorting dirty linen and mundane tasks of running the restaurant. This exciting continuation of the Liz Walker series serves up a new flavour of culinary-themed mystery and leave readers hungry for more. Mary Jackman is the former owner of a popular Toronto restaurant Peter Pan where several noted chefs got their start. This is the second in the Liz Walker series, following Spoiled Rotten which was hailed was hailed by Star Phoenix who proclaimed Liz Walker a “gem.”
SPOILED ROTTEN Mary Jackman A Liz Walker
Mystery
Manuscript Available
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Mystery
Mary Jackman Spoiled Rotten
L
eggy, sexy Liz Walker is the owner of Walker’s Way, a funky, hip restaurant and a breeding ground for young, soon-to-be famous chefs.
Praise for Spoiled Rotten: “Liz Walker, [is] a lively and believable character... and grabs your attention. She’s a gem.” The Star Phoenix
“Jackman’s entertaining debut, centered on a cozy Toronto bistro, is sure to appeal to anyone interested in the restaurant business.”
Publisher’s Weekly
“Spoiled Rotten is Light summer fare that also makes one salivate with all its talk of food... fun and full of drama.”
Halifax Chronicle Herald
Liz, smart and savvy, the mother of a 20-year-old son, knows how to deal with transient staff and temperamental cooks. But she is shocked when the butcher Mr. Tony, where she buys meat, is found hacked to death, the victim of a grisly murder. Moreover, she is worried when her talented young chef Daniel hasn’t shown up for work and becomes the main suspect. Liz goes looking for Daniel and winds up in the middle of a delicious plot that includes real estate machinations, a scam for selling illegal work visas, and betrayal. The fact that the police investigator on the case, David Winn, is falling for Liz adds zest to the adventure, but also raises the stakes. Mary Jackman, like her delightful heroine Liz Walker, owns a cool and funky restaurant, the Peter Pan in Toronto’s Queen St neighborhood where a few celebrity chefs (Susur Lee) got their start. In her new venture, she gives us an insider’s view of the restaurant and food business with all of its allure and some of its tribulations. Spoiled Rotten will entertain and enlighten anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, dreamed of owning a restaurant, or eaten in a restaurant. And fans have a new Liz Walker installment to anticipate, titled Finger Food.
Dundurn World Rights Spring 2012
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Memoir
Eric Koch Eric and Daria (Working Title) A memoir of two young people in a time of war
E Eric Koch who was born in Frankfurt in 1919, lives in Toronto. His grandfather was a court jeweler and his father was an officer in the German army in WWI. Eric was deported to Canada, interned as an enemy alien during WWII. On his release, he remained in Canada, making his career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He also is the author of 14 works of fiction and five works of non-fiction.
ric Koch was 19, on holiday from his studies at Cambridge in August 1938, when he met 17-year-old Daria. She had uncombed hair, sparkling blue eyes and ambitions to be a writer. Eric, a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi Germany, had war and uncertainty in his future. Of Daria, he noted: “Too young for me anyway. What would I do with a schoolgirl.” Yet, their encounter at a two-star hotel in the French Alps was the beginning of a five-year correspondence, set against huge upheavals. Eric was arrested by the British as an enemy alien and sent to an internment camp in Canada. Daria, daughter of a privileged and cultured family in London, struggled to find her path in the maelstrom. Her letters are fresh and reveal a lively intelligence and considerable talent. But as the war and the years unfold, increasingly dark signs emerge. Loneliness and fear propel Daria and Eric to flirt with romantic fantasies of being together after the war. Eric, unmoored from home and the family’s upscale jewelry establishment in Frankfurt, ironically, exhibited greater resilience. Daria, whose father was a renowned musician and whose mother was from the British aristocracy, suffered emotional turbulence in London. Eric had saved Daria’s letters. When he unearthed them five decades later, they shocked him and he sought news of her. Her family rebuffed him, blaming him for grievously disappointing her. Did he lead her on? Were there junctures when different decisions could have meant a vastly different outcome?
This memoir of a relationship between two young people in a time of war and internment is an engrossing, poignant tale that will be embraced by readers who admire In the Garden of the Beasts and The Hare With Amber Eyes. Manuscript Available
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Memoir
Jack Kuper Child of the Holocaust
“Marvellous . . . The charm and fascination of the book lie in the dual role of survival and growing up.” London Times Literary Supplement
Remarkable . . . Gripping . . . a child’s struggle for survival”
The Globe and Mail
“Astounding . . . a work that amounts to a letter from inside a nightmare . . . A miraculous example of the human spirit at its most resilient.” Toronto Star
“Artfully rendered . . . testifying to the spirit of a man who emerged whole from a childhood of shame and despair.” Saturday Review
“He reveals the terror, the mental and physical sufferings, and the hope and courage of a youngster’s desperate will to survive.” Seattle Times
J
ack Kuper was only nine years old when he came home to find everyone in his family gone. The night before, Germans had come to his village in rural Poland and taken away all the Jews. Now alone in the world, he has to change his name, forget his language and abandon his religion in order to survive. Jack wanders through Nazi occupied Poland for four years, with no place to hide and no one to trust. The harrowing true story of how he survives has been hailed as a classic, as powerful as The Diary of Anne Frank, and celebrated for its rare beauty. It has been in print in various editions in English and a dozen other languages since 1966. Jack Kuper escaped Poland and immigrated to Canada at the age of 15. He spent much of his career in advertising, producing and directing award-winning TV commercials. As a filmmaker he has written and directed several shorts. His film RUN! was honoured at the Venice Film Festival. He is also the author of After the Smoke Cleared, the sequel to this book. He now lives in Toronto with his wife Terrye and speaks often to groups about his experiences during the Holocaust.
Robson Press UK 2013 Mexico Diana/Planeta 2009 Dozens of translations/editions US, Can rights available
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Fiction
Susan Ferrier MacKay Butterfly of Venus An Erotic Novel
A
t age 40, Elizabeth Harding has been harboring a sexual secret. Despite her worldliness she has never experienced satisfaction with a partner. Susan Ferrier MacKay is a journalist and writer who lives outside Toronto.
When we meet Elizabeth, she heads a hugely successful music talent management company and is recovering from the collapse of a longtime relationship with a real estate tycoon who left her for a young lingerie model. Her friend Effie refuses to let her mope any longer and plans a birthday party for her. At the party, she is smitten by surprise guest Declan Thomas, a stunningly attractive, brilliant, young singer/ songwriter, 16 year her junior. Despite her fear of mixing business and sex, and her anxiety over their age difference, Elizabeth is won over by the confident young man who insists she share her steamy inner world of fantasy with him. Their bubble of joy and delightful glamour is pierced by Declan’s complex personal life. He is being stalked by a viperous, possessive former lover who insinuates herself into Elizabeth’s office and the heart of her world. The situation is more hazardous than Elizabeth forecasts. She stands to lose everything: Declan, her business, her balance, and maybe even her life. When she finds herself pregnant, Elizabeth must decide if Declan is mature enough to embrace the responsibilities of fatherhood and she must decide if she can chart an entirely new direction. Within the frame of this erotic romance, Susan Ferrier MacKay has written a layered novel that satisfies on many levels. Her sequel, Dragonfly of Venus has a rich plot set partly Scotland, involving a plane crash and the reappearance of Declan’s mad stalker.
HarperCollins NA 2014 Droemer GER 2014
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Leon Major with Michael Laing The Empty Voice How Good Acting Makes Great Opera
For opera lovers, theatre-goers, teachers and students of creative writing, and anyone interested in literature and dramatic structure… Leon Major’s 2006 production of The Barber of Seville was a highlight of 2006 season at Glimmerglass opera festival. He has been Artistic Advisor to Cleveland Opera and Artistic Director of Boston Lyric Opera (from 1998 – 2003). He has directed opera and theatre throughout the Americas and Europe for companies that include: New York City Opera, San Diego Opera, Vancouver Opera, Teatro Municipale (Rio di Janeiro), The Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florentine Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Washington Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the Canadian Opera Company and The Opera Festival of New Jersey. Productions have included: Macbeth, Falstaff, Intermezzo, Don Pasquale, The Aspern Papers, Il Barbiere di Sevilla, L’Italiana in Algeri, The Merry Wives of Windsor; Intermezzo, Salome, Don Carlos, Resurrection, Aida, Don Giovanni, Salome (co-produced with Glimmerglass Opera), Roméo et Juliette, La traviata, L’elisir d’amore and Carmen (on the Boston Common). Amadeus Press World 2011
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O
pera is not only voice, says Leon Major. “Composers write complex and detailed musical scores that are grounded in stories of passion and conflict, suffering and joy, forgiveness and despair. It takes place in the theater, not in a concert hall.” The story, and therefore, the acting are crucial to the theatrical experience, almost as important as voice. Opera has had explosive growth in North America in the last 20 years, in ways that it always has been popular in many European countries. One reason is that the story on which the opera is based is more accessible thanks to surtitles, translations of the opera’s words which are projected on a screen above the stage. We can follow the action, without having to sit there with a score and libretto or studying a translation for three days ahead of time Leon Major, who has spent a lifetime in the theater, helps us find the dramatic action of the opera by using key scenes from some of the world’s best-loved operas. Witty, anecdotal, even gossipy, he brings us opera from the inside out, showing us how the director works with musicians, singers, and designers. Leon Major is founder and artistic director of The Maryland Opera Studio for the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has directed many productions including operas by Handel, Monteverdi, and Mozart. He has also taught in Tel Aviv, Mexico City and Shanghai, as well as in the United States and Canada. Michael Laing is an education policy consultant and writer who has always loved opera, but who never thought it was more than a collection of greatest hits until he started working with Leon.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Michael Marrus The Lessons of the Holocaust
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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 Holocaust Studies. He is a member of the Order of Canada.
Praise for The Holocaust in History: “The best assessment available on the state of knowledge on the Final Solution, on motives, resistance, and collaboration, as well as the reaction of the outside world. This book is also the best short review of this tragic period.”
Walter Laqueur
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.
“Wonderfully researched and superbly written, this book is the finest available introduction to how historians write about the Holocaust.”
Library Journal
Manuscript Available
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Non-Fiction
Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster Beyond Intelligence: Secrets for Raising Happily Productive Kids
T kids.
Dona J. Matthews, Ph.D was founding director of the Center for Gifted Studies and Education, Hunter College, City University of New York. In 2008, she received the Upton Sinclair award for her “outstanding contribution to the field of education in America.” Joanne F. Foster, Ed.D is a leading authority on gifted education. She teaches courses in educational psychology and high-level education at the University of Toronto, provides consultancy services to teachers, and serves on advisory committees. She writes a featured column in the journal Parenting for High Potential. Learn more at: www.raisingsmarterkids.net “Parents everywhere will be edified and empowered by this inspiring book.”
Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
here are thousands of books about dealing with problem children, but few about nurturing children’s intelligence and raising smarter
Intelligence is not fixed from an early age, and all children can be helped to develop their intelligence, regardless of their IQ or starting point. Two internationally recognized experts in high-level development, use their extensive experience with children, families, and schools to give parents practical techniques to improve their children’s success in school and life. What is intelligence? What can parents and teachers do to nurture it when it isn’t obvious, and support it when it is? Enrolled in advanced classes as children, and as parents of diverse learners, Dona and Joanne have long grappled with the challenges and opportunities of high-level ability. In Beyond Intelligence, they reveal how parents can identify a child’s abilities, foster creativity, bolster effort and persistence, prevent or alleviate emotional and social problems, and provide a balance of support and challenge at home and at school. They show how to embrace failures as learning opportunities and to praise children not for their intelligence but for their efforts. They draw on insights from current brain research to show that intelligence is not fixed, and can be increased. Through myriad anecdotes from their case files, and in a warm reassuring voice, they offer practical suggestions and strategies for raising smart, well-balanced, happily productive children. Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster are the authors of the award-winning Being Smart about Gifted Education, a finalist in the National Best Books 2009 Awards sponsored by USA Book News.
Anansi (World) 2014
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Non-Fiction
Ken McGoogan 50 Canadians Who Changed The World Amazing people who have built our present and are shaping our tomorrow.
“Ken McGoogan is required reading for any Canadian who wants to know the real history of our country.” —Peter Mansbridge
“McGoogan is rapidly becoming the rightful successor to populist historian Pierre Berton.” —Toronto Star
Using the successful format of How the Scots Invented Canada, Ken McGoogan takes the reader on a compelling journey through the lives of fifty accomplished Canadians born in the 20th century who have changed—and often continue to change—the great wide world. He discovers an astonishing array of activists, humanitarians, visionaries, scientists and inventors, all of whom have made an impact internationally. From Tommy Douglas, Pierre Trudeau, John Kenneth Galbraith, Naomi Klein, Marshall McLuhan, Stephen Lewis and Roméo Dallaire to Glenn Gould, David Suzuki, Mike Lazaridis, Margaret Atwood, Oscar Peterson, Leonard Cohen and thirty-seven others, Ken McGoogan shows us why and how Canadians move in the wider world as influencers and agents of progressive change. Say hello to fifty Canadians who are shaping the future. Ken McGoogan is the bestselling, author of three previous books on Arctic explorers and adventurers, Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner and Lady Franklin’s Revenge. His awards include the Christopher Award, the Pierre Berton Award, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize. Fatal Passage, the story of explorer John Rae and his confrontation with Lady Jane Franklin and Charles Dickens, has been adapted for an acclaimed film, which was released in the UK, US and Canada in 2008.
HarperCollins CAN 2013
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Ken McGoogan How The Scots Invented Canada
“...[written with] lively intelligence and [a] keen eye for detail... How the Scots Invented Canada provides a pleasurable way to get to know many of the most colourful men and women in our history.”
Globe & Mail
“McGoogan’s How the Scots Invented Canada isn’t presenting Scottish influence as absolute on the evolution of Canada, but certainly an essential one... A magnificent, rich compilation of Canadian (and Scottish) histories.” Author Rob McLennan
“All in all, there are about five million good reasons to read McGoogan’s book.” Winnipeg Free Press
No matter where you enter the history of Canada – through exploration, politics, business, education or literature -- you find that the Scots and their descendants have played a leading role. Today, almost five million Canadians identify themselves as Scottish, and their influence is felt throughout the land. Starting with his own deep roots in Scotland and early Canada, Ken McGoogan has created a lively, entertaining narrative that focuses on more than sixty Scots who have led the way in shaping this country. Early arrivals included explorers Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser and the “Scotch West Indian,” James Douglas. Later, Scots such as Lord Selkirk and John Galt encouraged thousands to immigrate. Nation-builders followed, among them John A. Macdonald, James McGill and the reformer Nellie McClung. Then came the visionaries, Scottish Canadians such as Tommy Douglas, Doris Anderson and Marshall McLuhan, who have turned Canada into a nation that revels in diversity. McGoogan commemorates the first settlers to land at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and celebrates such hybrid Canadians as the Cherokee Scot John Norton, Thérèse MacDonald Casgrain and the kilt-loving John George Diefenbaker. He honours the war contributions of Scottish Canadian regiments, and he toasts Sir Walter Scott and the beloved Robbie Burns. Beautifully illustrated and handsomely packaged, How the Scots Invented Canada is an exuberant celebration of the building of a nation. Ken McGoogan is the bestselling, author of three previous books on Arctic explorers and adventurers, Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner and Lady Franklin’s Revenge. His awards include the Christopher Award, the Pierre Berton Award, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize. Fatal Passage, the story of explorer John Rae and his confrontation with Lady Jane Franklin and Charles Dickens, has been adapted for an acclaimed film, which was released in the UK, US and Canada in 2008.
HarperCollins Canada 2010
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Learn more at: kenmcgoogan.blogspot.com Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
“His biography is detailed and compulsive.” The Mail on Sunday (London)
“...an exhaustive and scrupulously researched biography.”
Sara Wheeler Times of London
HarperCollins Canada 2005 Bantam United Kingdom 2007
Ken McGoogan
Ken McGoogan
Lady Franklin’s Revenge
Fatal Passage
Born into a wealthy London family in 1791, Jane Griffin was denied the opportunities available to men of her class. Yet she became a world traveler, and with her husband Sir John Franklin presided over Tasmania. She helped Franklin seize the leadership of a Royal Navy expedition to find the shortcut to China. After he disappeared in the Arctic, Jane dispatched seven doomed expeditions to find him, and became the most important person in Arctic exploration.
“In Ken McGoogan’s artful telling, John Rae emerges from the shadows to take his place among the most intriguing of the 19th century arctic explorers. This is delightful reading.” Andrea Barrett
Carroll & Graf USA 2002 Bantam Press UK 2002 HarperCollins Canada 2001 Film PTV
The Observer
“A gripping tale of genuine adventures, very well told.”
Kirkus Reviews
Bantam Press UK 2004 Carroll & Graf USA 2004 HarperCollins Canada 2003
Rae’s heroic achievements were almost wiped from history by Franklin’s widow who enlisted Charles Dickens in her campaign against him.
Ken McGoogan
Ken McGoogan
Ancient Mariner
Race to the Polar Sea
Samuel Hearne, the first European to reach the Arctic coast of North America, made a remarkable 3500mile journey over land in his quest for copper.
“Brisk, readable books don’t come much better than this.”
In May 1854, John Rae, a young Scottish doctor, achieved the goal dozens of Arctic explorers had attempted and failed. He discovered the key link in the Northwest Passage, and he learned the shocking truth of cannibalism among the starving crew of the expedition led by Sir John Franklin.
The harrowing expedition culminated in the infamous massacre of Bloody Falls in 1771. Later, Hearne was captured by the French in a siege against his Arctic outpost. He was torn away from his lover, a native woman, who tragically died before he could return to her.
Elisha Kent Kane, a young Philadelphia doctor, is often proclaimed to be America’s Shackleton. He led two gruelling expeditions in the 1850s to the North Pole. “An impressive case for the bravery and importance of the explorer who first identified the Greenland ice sheet.”
The young adventurer’s rightful place in Arctic legend was ruined by his love for an unsuitable woman.
Publishers Weekly
“Terrifically accessible.”
Kirkus
Counterpoint US 2008 HarperCollins Canada 2008
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Non-Fiction
Michael McGuire Believing
The Science of Fantasies, Fears, and Convictions
M
ichael McGuire is a psychiatrist by training, a neuroscientist by occupation and a preeminent figure in brain-behavior research.
Michael McGuire is author or coauthor of 5 books, notably Darwinian Psychiatry (Oxford University Press) and God’s Brain. His research findings on serotonin levels and its links to dominance in vervet monkeys has been featured in the New York Times and Newsweek. His distinguished academic career includes positions at Harvard Medical School, University of California Medical School , Director UCLA’s non-human primate research facility for 20 years and Director, Gruter Institute of Law and Behavior. He lives in northern California. “An important book for any believer who now wants to know.”
—Jay R. Feierman, The Biology of Religious Behavior
“From marketing soft drinks to managing genocidal wars, the brain and its beliefs remain central. Believing will clarify how and why. It may even protect you.”
Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University Prometheus NA 2013 Peppermint KOR 2014 Obeikan Saudi Arabia 2015
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His interest in the mechanisms and persistence of beliefs was ignited by a tearful psychiatric patient, who, for years was unable to accept that her parents, whom she loved, were her biological parents, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Her difficulty believing irrefutable evidence led McGuire to undertake decades of research involving vervets and chimpanzees. In this short and lively book, McGuire recounts his investigation on the latest contributions of philosophers, historians, cognitive psychologists, theologians, evolutionary biologists, and brain scientists. Notably, McGuire also draws on his own research on the role of serotonin. Each discipline has something enlightening to offer, but none is sufficient. However, nowhere is there a more complete or entertaining summary of current knowledge on belief. And surprises abound. *Belief does not cause action; action often comes first. *We believe we have made a decision or a plan, that we have free will and choices are not random, but biology says otherwise. *The default state of beliefs is resistance to change. *The brain is the product of millions of years of evolution and the mechanisms responsible for belief are unperceived in awareness. *The brain, its mechanisms and its ways of processing information are unlikely to change soon. McGuire addresses features suggested in Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer but in their work, the biological mechanisms responsible remain to be specified. It is these that McGuire addresses.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
John Miller Shed Your Skin
I
n 1992 Toronto, a midnight bomber destroys an abortion clinic and spray-paints the message: “one down, two to go.”
John Miller’s acclaimed debut novel The Featherbed was published in 2002, His second novel, A Sharp Intake of Breath won the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award for Fiction for 2008. He works as a consultant to local and international groups working with children afflicted with HIV/ AIDS, he is based in Toronto. Praise for A Sharp Intake of Breath “A Sharp Intake of Breath resounds with a unique and authentic voice... a heartwarming and potent piece of fiction.” Quill & Quire
“It reveals Miller as an impressive storyteller; one wonders what he’ll do next.” The National Post
“... a real page-turner and a welcome addition to the literature of the Jewish immigrant experience.” NOW Magazine
The crime’s sole victim is Frankie, a pregnant, crack addicted, former prostitute, who is HIV positive. She is torn between having an abortion and dreaming that a baby will return her to her former middle-class life before the streets claimed her. Although Frankie recognizes the bomber—a former trick with escalating religious zeal—she refuses to expose him to the police, even when she learns that he is pretending to be part of the local abortion clinic support group. Meanwhile, the anti-abortion protest group is already under suspicion. Their ranks have been penetrated by Martin, an undercover cop, but without Frankie’s testimony he doesn’t have evidence to arrest the bomber. Martin has been assigned to infiltrate the anti-abortion group because one of its members is his former childhood nemesis. What neither man can reveal is that their teen years were absorbed by furtive gay encounters—and on Martin’s part, profound disappointment born of love. John Miller, deftly and sensitively takes us into both the pro-choice and anti-abortion factions, portraying each with clear-eyed empathy. Frankie, smart, foul-mouthed, courageous and wounded, unintentionally captures media attention as she ponders her choice to abort or to give birth. She is the heart-breaking engine of the tale and we yearn for her to reclaim and redeem her life.
“Good, solid storytelling.”
Calgary Herald
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Mystery Series
Angela Misri Thrice Burned
S Angela Misri has worked at the CBC as a news writer, radio producer, digital producer and manager of digital strategy. She now develops web sites and teaches journalism at Ryerson University. She is married and the mother of a 12-year-old son. She also is writing more adventures for Portia Adams, a Sherlockian tour de force suitable for all ages. Praise for Angela Misri: “Portia Adams will prove to be a whip-smart, worthy new heroine.” Quill and Quire
“Misri has made a clever contribution to Sherlock Holmes spin-off literature. Jewel of the Thames will introduce younger readers to the Holmes world while also appealing to seasoned Sherlock fans.” CM Magazine
herlock Holmes fans can rejoice! There is a new detective inhabiting 221 Baker Street and she is a treasure. At age 19, Portia Adams has not only inherited the London home of Holmes and Watson, she has also inherited their acuity and powers of observation. Portia was raised in Toronto by her beloved mother, who had kept Portia’s origins secret from her. On her mother’s death, Portia’s entire existence is shaken. Her newly acquired guardian Irene Adler, reveals that Portia’s maternal grandfather was Dr. John Watson. Later, she discovers that the notorious Irene Adler had a liaison with Sherlock Holmes and their late son was Portia’s father. A thoughtful, resilient girl, Portia begins legal studies in London in 1930 and soon becomes a consulting detective for three thorny cases. In her early forays chronicled in Jewel of the Thames, she unmasks a thief, discovers she has been set up to accuse an innocent woman of murder, and rescues a child.
In this second volume, Thrice Burned, Portia has grown in confidence, and tackles another trio of mysteries, involving arson, art theft and the disappearance of women damned by a local priest. Despite Portia’s natural reserve, her social life develops. She becomes friendly with a lively female journalist who is a bit too interested in Portia’s friend Brian, and she attracts two other male admirers. Angela Misri, whose family is from India, was born in Croydon, England. They then moved to Canada when she was 7. Her admiration of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series blossomed when she was an undergraduate at University of Calgary. Her senior thesis, “The Psychoanalysis of Sherlock Holmes,” suggesting that Holmes was bipolar, was a great excuse for Angela to read Conan Doyle’s complete works three times.
Fierce Ink Canada 2015
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Memoir
Shannon Moroney Through The Glass
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Shannon Moroney speaks widely on restorative justice. She is also a teacher in Toronto. Learn more at: www.shannonmoroney.com Praise for Shannon Moroney: “A compelling documentation of a flawed penal system, a nuanced look at the humanity of a violent criminal, and a snapshot of the cognitive dissonance required by romantic love. Most of all, it’s a meditation on forgiveness.” - Maclean’s
“A remarkable story... of love and betrayal, of a horribly broken man’s hidden bbrutality and his ex-wife’s boundless capacity to forgive.” - National Post
UK Title: The Stranger Inside
hen Shannon Moroney married in October of 2005, she had no idea that her happy life as a newlywed was about to come crashing down. One month after her wedding, a police officer arrived at her door to tell her that her husband, Jason, had been arrested and charged in the brutal assault and kidnapping of two women. In the aftermath of these crimes, Shannon dealt with a heavy burden of grief, the stress and publicity of a major criminal investigation, and the painful stigma of guilt-by-association, all while attempting to understand what had made Jason turn to such violence. In this intimate and gripping journey into prisons, courtrooms and the human heart, Shannon exposes the far-reaching impact of Jason’s crimes, the agonizing choices faced by the loved ones of offenders and the implicit dangers of a correctional system and a society that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation, and victimhood over recovery. Through it all, Shannon retained unwavering support from her closeknit family and golden circle of friends. In forging her own path to forgiveness –to let go of hope for a better past-- she won a fellowship to complete a Master’s degree in International Child Welfare in England at the University of East Anglia. She speaks internationally on restorative justice and has extensively toured Canada and the U.S., addressing university and high school students, prison inmates, legal and mental health professionals and law-enforcers on the ripple effects of crime for all victims and for society at large. She is a volunteer with Leave Out ViolencE and is a contributor to The Forgiveness Project, an international charity that encourages people to explore the nature of forgiveness and alternatives to revenge.
Doubleday Canada Fall 2011 Simon & Schuster US 2012 Smon & Schuster UK 2013
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Fiction
Donna Morrissey The Deception of Livvy Higgs
A stunning multi-generational saga of secrets and lies
Nominated for the 2013 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award “This hauntingly beautiful novel lingers in the imagination like the sight of a storm-churned ocean, and confirms that Morrissey is one of Canada’s great storytellers.” Vincent Lam
“Haunting, emotionally insistent, lyrical and powerful in its portrait of two unforgettable women whose fates are entwined by a violent act, this is Donna Morrissey’s best work yet. Her writing has what Chekhov called “indispensible layering of fact and feeling.” Morrissey has brought the WWII era into the present with the disturbing intimacy of a seance. A rare accomplishment.” Howard Norman
T
he childhood of Livvy Higgs, in the idyllic, isolated fishing village on the French shore of Newfoundland was a battleground of bitterness and lies. There were tensions, veering on hatred, between those of French ancestry and those with English roots, like her father Durwin Higgs, owner of the general store. But there was also the animosity between her parents. Her doting mother fed her a thick gruel of confusion, born from the lies she imbibed from her mother Creed, who masked her humble beginnings behind a cloak of aristocracy. The death of Livvy’s mother and her growing feelings for the French boy next door prompted Durwin to cast her out from the village to live with grandmother Creed in Halifax. We meet Livvy near the end of her life as she begins to cut through the web of truth and deception that shaped her. Thanks to her caring next door neighbor Gen, a young single mother with a story of her own, Livvy completes her journey toward understanding, clarity, acceptance and love. The Deception of Livvy Higgs is a tour-de-force, a story involving the powerful forces of greed, pretensions, old wounds, terrible crimes, and the healing balm of forgiveness. Donna Morrissey grew up in the Beaches, a small fishing outport in Newfoundland. Her four previous, award-winning novels, drawing on her roots in that rich and rocky terrain, have been bestsellers in Canada and published in several languages, including German, Japanese, Swedish and Italian. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Penguin Can 2012
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Fiction
Donna Morrissey
Donna Morrissey
What They Wanted
Sylvanus Now The time is the 1950s and the place is Canada’s Atlantic coast at the edge of the great Newfoundland fishing banks.
Sylvie Now fevers for the larger world, both for herself and her vulnerable, artistic brother Chris.
“An absolute terrific original.” David Adams Richards
Brother and sister journey west to the booming oilfields to earn quick, hard cash, joining rough characters. In that throbbing angry earth, their lives are changed. Yet, out of pain and piercing grief, there is reconciliation and renewal.
“Morrissey summons energy ... the writing is poised, charged and tactile, almost biblical in places.” The Sunday Times (London)
“A splendidly unique novel.”
Alistair MacLeod
Penguin Canada 2005 Hodder & Stoghton UK 2005 W.W.Norton U.S.A. 2006 Premium/DTV Germany 2007
Penguin Canada Fall 2008 DTV Germany 2008
“A Newfoundland Thomas Hardy...Morrissey’s work is a performance, an almost oral folk epic.” The Globe and Mail
Aoyama Japan 2003 Forum Sweden 2004 Houghton Mifflin US 2003 Hodder & Stoughton UK 2002 Penguin Canada 2002
This is the love story of Sylvanus Now and the fiery Adelaide. With their heartbreaking loss and renewal of passion, we are aware that Sylvanus Now’s eternal, beloved sea is on the cusp of cataclysmic change. A powerful tale of two people caught in the upheaval of personal, social, and global change of unimagined proportions.
Donna Morrissey
Donna Morrissey
Downhill Chance
Kit’s Law
Job Gale, a fisherman, hunter, logger, joins the army in World War II, leaving his distraught wife and two young daughters. When Job returns, he is broken in body and tortured with a secret shame that cascades over the family.
At 14, never having known her father, Kit becomes responsible for her mentally handicapped mother when her grandmother dies. She fends off village busybodies who try to place mother and daughter in institutions.
His young daughter Clair escapes by becoming a teacher at nearby Rocky Head, then falls in love with Luke, who courts her from afar with a story which reveals his own secret sorrow.
“Irresistible...Masterful... The rich, rocky terrain of Newfoundland has borne a native storyteller with talent to burn in Donna Morrissey.” Sunday Tribune, Dublin
Throughout the turmoil, Kit is sustained by a kindly doctor and the love of Sid, son of Reverend Ropson. Confronted by shattering revelations, Kit retains her courage and resilience.
Cairo Italy 2009 Aoyama Japan 2003 Houghton Mifflin US 2003 Heyne Germany 2001 Hodder & Stoughton UK 2002
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Memoir
Memoir
Marina Nemat
Marina Nemat
Prisoner of Tehran
After Tehran
Finalist for 2012 Canada Reads
O Grinzane Book Award Italy 2008 The FreePress U2007 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
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
“...an account as graceful, honest, and revelatory as her original.”
W
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, Penguin Canada 2010 and flashbacks of the agonies Cairo Italy Nov 2010 she suffered, intrude on her Droemer Germany 2012 life as a housewife and mother Kinneret Israel 2012 with a job as a waitress at a suburban fast food restaurant.
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Fiction
Short-listed: 2010 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel
James W. Nichol
James W. Nichol
Death Spiral
Transgression
Wilf McLauchlin, a Spitfire fighter pilot returns home only to be plagued with dark and violent crimes as he discovers body after body.
When Adele Georges’ father is captured by the German forces, she makes inquiries at the local authorities. A German soldier tries to help her navigate the bureaucracy. Love grows across the enemy lines, with devastating consequences.
Wilf begins to suspect Evergreen Award, Ontario whether he is the common motivating element Library Association in all these crimes. McArthur & Co. Canada 2009 C&T Poland 2011
HarperCollins US 2009 der Club book club Germany Goldmann Germany 2007 McArthur Canada 2008 C&T Poland 2011
James W. Nichol
James W. Nichol is a
prominent playwright and screenwriter. His book Midnight Cab was
Midnight Cab
Mass market reissue McArthur & Co. Canada 2007 Sony Japan 2006 Newton & Compton Italy 2006 Droemer Germany 2005 Canongate U.S.A. 2005 Fleuve Noire France 2005 Luitingh-Sijthoff Netherlands 2005 AST Russia 2005 C & T Poland 2005 Canongate UK 2004 Knopf Canada 2002 Rest of World: Canongate
Walker has come to the city to unearth the mystery of his early life. At age three, he was found abandoned on a deserted country road. He only has two clues to his identity: a photograph and a letter from a teenage girl. Optioned by Fox TV Studios
James W. Nichol
published in several countries including Germany where it is a best seller with sales in excess of 500,000 copies. It was short listed for the Gold Dagger award in the UK, and won the Canadian Crime Writers Award for the best first novel. He is also author of the suspenseful literary tale Transgression (HarperUS 2009). He lives in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant The Age of Persuasion How Marketing Ate Our Culture CBC Radio’s Age of Persuasion won five New York Festivals International Radio Awards, including the 2011 Grand Prize in Business and Consumer Affairs
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“A lively, anecdotal primer...filled with smart and breezy tales told from an insider’s perspective.”
itty, erudite, and irrepressibly irreverent, Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant offer a lively social history of advertising and its impact as a major cultural force in modern life.
“[A]n instant classic on media literacy.”
Terry O’Reilly is the perfect guide to the age of persuasion. As the host, creator and co-writer with Mike Tennant of two wildly popular CBC Radio series on advertising, he is known as a delightful raconteur and scholar of media literature. But unlike academics, his day job as one of the top directors of radio and TV commercials affords him a unique perspective on marketing and how it has driven a change in the way we react to media.
Washington Post
Movie Entertainment
“Witty and insightful... this ragbag of pop culture references, anecdotes, solid research, and advice will be indispensable to marketers or anyone curious about the power and ubiquity of advertising in modern culture.” Publishers Weekly
“O’Reilly and Tennant are exceptionally talented writers...In a straightforward, popular style, The Age of Persuasion is easy-to-read and often subversive.”
Globe & Mail
Terry O’Reilly has won hundreds of advertising awards and is the co-founder of Pirate Radio and Television. The Age of Persuasion is broadcast on CBC Radio and NPR’s WBEZ Chicago.
The age of persuasion dawned in the 1880s with the rise of ad agencies. In its fledgling years, advertising was defined as “salesmanship on paper.” That concept was left in the dust with the explosion of media and consumerism. Radio in the 1920s and television in the 1950s spawned market research and the idea of persuasion as a “science.” The creative explosion in the 1960s, however, revealed persuasion to be a delicate “art.” In the 1980s, the arrival of a multi-channel universe and MTV’s rapid-fire editing of images and sound, forever altered our attention span and notions of fast and slow, short and long. The authors also explore such topics as ad clutter, the implied contract advertisers have with consumers and the peril of breaking it. They chart the rise and fall of branded entertainment, disclose new language of persuasion and candidly reveal examples of opportunism and cynicism. But they also appreciate the inventiveness, craft and art in creating the best ads that add colour to daily life.
Knopf Canada 2009 Counterpoint US 2010 Cheers Publishing China 2010
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Fiction
David Penhale Passing Through
A moving and witty novel about starting over in a changed world David Penhale lived in Dubai for several years. A published poet, he has honed his novel at writing workshops at the University of Iowa. He lives in Toronto where he teaches writing and is working on a second novel. Learn more at: www.davidpenhale.com
D
aniel Foster has a plan. A quick stop in Toronto to fix his daughter’s life, then off to Thailand. After years working as an oil executive in Dubai, he has a small fortune, enough to fund a comfortable life under the palms. Mary, his daughter, and Shawna, his 11 year-old granddaughter, are struggling to make ends meet in a rundown neighbourhood. A few days to put their finances in order, and Foster will get back on a plane. So much for plans. A bank crash wipes out Foster’s savings. He’s marooned in a city he scarcely recognizes. His managerial skills are staledated, he is told. He prides himself on his people skills, but when it comes to love, he has a lot to learn. The tense relationship with his daughter Mary and the growing warmth between Foster and young Shawna are pitch perfect. Foster’s cautious, cool romance with Jessica, an artist and a fellow victim of the bank collapse, is layered and revealing. We visit the dunes and wadis of the Arabian Peninsula, whose stark beauty has touched Foster deeply, and we explore the edgy, multi-ethnic city that becomes his home. Other pleasures are the wry social observations on big box, post-modern culture which arise from Foster’s attempts to get a job and rebuild his life. A family drama reminiscent of the novels of Anne Tyler, Passing Through is a profound comic novel of contemporary life and society. With Daniel Foster, we discover what it means to belong, and what it takes to love.
Cormorant Canada 2011 Morning Star Taiwan 2013
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Mystery
Andrea Geddes Poole Death in a Past Tense
T Andrea Geddes Poole is a graduate lawyer, with a Ph.D in history, experience in commercial litigation, theater management and teaching and writing history.
he French-born baker who fled Paris in the turbulent 1960s for Brooklyn, New York, returns briefly 40 years later to visit his dying mother. When he is found murdered under a bridge on the Seine, the police investigation is assigned to the urbane, wry, intellectual commissaire Maurice Lalonde. At first, the baker, Jean-Marc Verdurin was thought to have left France to avoid the French military draft. But Lalonde and his commandant, Dupont, are struck by Verdurin’s collection of three articles from different newspapers, each reporting a routine school opening attended by local politicians. As Lalonde develops a time-line of Verdurin’s activities during his short family visit, he uncovers a complex past for the secretive baker. The trail leads to Verdurin’s youthful, tragic error, and his role as a witness in a major scandal in French politics. Lalonde’s suspenseful exploration contains splendid details of French life—notably, food, sharp depictions of social class and status wars, insights into the functions of bureaucracy, and the rise of a nasty conservative wing in French political life.
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Andrea Geddes Poole, who has French roots, was born in London, Canada in 1959, earned a B.A. in history from Bennington College, a B.A. and M.A. in law from Oxford University, an LL.M. in law from New York University and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto. She practiced law in New York in the 1980’s. In the 1990’s she worked in theater with Circle Repertory Company and the La Jolla Playhouse. From 2006 to 2012 she taught history at Trent University. She is the author of Stewards of the Nation’s Art: Contested Cultural Authority 1890-1939 (UTP, 2009), andThe Construction of Victorian Women’s Citizenship: Miss Emma Cons and Lady Frederick Cavendish (UTP, 2014). She is now adding novelist to her portfolio of impressive accomplishments.
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Non-Fiction
David Posen Is Work Killing You?
A Doctor’s Prescription For Treating Workplace Stress
D In 1985 Dr. Posen switched from family medicine to stress management, lifestyle counseling psychotherapy and speaking. Clients include American Express, Warner Bros., Chevron, Pfizer, Research in Motion, Kraft, Microsoft, and Rogers Communications. He is quoted in such leading magazines as McCall’s, Men’s Health and USA Weekend and his TV and radio appearances have aired nation-wide. Learn more at: www.davidposen.com Praise for Always Change A Losing Game “Dr. Posen teaches us, through practical and entertaining stories, how to make our lives better in every way – and inspires us to take action!” Jack Canfield, Co-author, Chicken Soup For The Soul “This book makes change seem fun rather than a chore. Begin reading any page – you’ll not want to put this wonderful book down.” Christine A. Padesky, PhD, co-author of Mind Over Mood
r. David Posen, a leading expert on stress mastery and work-life balance, is a physician, a popular speaker, and bestselling author. In Is Work Killing You?, he confronts in blunt terms those who manage the work place. Although some level of stress is energizing, excessive stress exacts a costly toll on physical and mental health. Downsizing, economic uncertainty, technology, and abusive bosses have converged to make the workplace more toxic than ever before. In Is Work Killing You? Dr. Posen challenges distorted thinking in the workplace. He posits four arguments: 1. Workplaces are making people sick. 2. No one is talking about it. 3. Stressed out workers who put in extraordinarily long hours are actually less productive. 4. The solutions are not that complicated. In his absorbing book, illustrated with revealing anecdotes, and supported by facts from a wide range of business leaders, and bolstered with a clear description of the biology of stress, Dr. Posen hopes to give individuals and organizations the tools to stop harming their most valuable resource--their employees. A Canadian bestseller, The Little Book of Stress Relief (Key Porter) has sold more than 50,000 copies and has been translated into six languages. It is re-issued for Spring 2012 by Firefly Books. Dr. Posen’s previous books include Staying Afloat When The Water Gets Rough and his classic, Always Change A Losing Game.
Anansi (CAN) 2013
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Non-Fiction
David Pratt
David Pratt The Impossible Takes Longer
The Lives of Nobel Laureates
S
ince its inception in 1901, the Nobel Prize has been the hallmark of genius. The laureates are sought after for their views on the state of the world, international affairs, the He is Professor Emeri- meaning of life, love, and, tus, Queen’s University, above all, success. David Pratt, who reads widely in several languages in the arts and sciences, has been studying Nobel laureates for decades, amassing an archive of 7,200 quotations.
Canada, was educated at Oxford, Harvard, and In The Lives of Nobel LauToronto. He lives Strat- reates, David Pratt probes ford, Ontario, Canada. Nobel laureates’ life expe-
F
“A fanatic is the one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
Winston S. Churchill Nobel Prize for Literature
“Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all.”
riences and hardships for Samuel Beckett clues that predict their suc- Nobel Prize for Literature cess and what we can learn “Instead of telling girls from them. Pratt’s narrative sparkles with nuggets of biography and is threaded with delightful descriptions of their prize-winning works, all informed by historical context. Wise and often funny, Pratt’s account of these fascinating people makes you think that you too may one day grasp the brass ring.
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to cover their hair, we should teach them to use their heads.”
Shirin Ebadi Nobel Prize for Peace
or more than a century the Nobel Prize has honored achievements in literature, science, and civic life. Nobel science laureates have given us X-rays, penicillin, Prozac and polio vaccine. They comprise a club of the planet’s best and brightest. From the Nobel’s extraordinary collection of talent, David Pratt compiled an original archive of 7,200 quotations and for this book selected 1,000 pithy and perceptive comments. Here are some of the world’s clearest minds on subjects like: Achievement and Failure; Work; Faith; Truth; Lies; Ideals; Death; Money; Emotions; and the Meaning of Life.
Bloomsbury US 2007 Douglas & McIntyre Canada 2007 PPM Editorial Spain 2008 Ersen Estonia 2009 Robson UK 2008 Ullstein Germany 2009 Ersen Estonia 2010 Beijing Mediatime Chinese 2013
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Historical Thriller
Roberta Rich The Harem Midwife
H
annah and Isaac return in this opulent, riveting, and suspenseful tale--a sequel to the #1 national bestseller The Midwife of Venice.
“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 …. The Harem Midwife is an entertaining read, sure to please those who enjoyed The Midwife of Venice and certain to find new fans as well.”
Vancouver Sun
“Love, roses, Turkish delight, blood, babies and a plucky heroine who triumphs. A great read!”
National Post
Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, have set up a new life for themselves in Constantinople. Isaac runs a newly established business in the growing silk trade, while Hannah, the best midwife in all of Constantinople, plies her trade within the opulent palace of Sultan Murat III, tending to the thousand women of his lively and infamous harem. But one night, when Hannah is unexpectedly summoned to the palace, she’s confronted with Leah, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the sultan’s harem. The Sultan favours her as his next conquest and wants her to produce his heir, but the girl just wants to return to her home and the only life she has ever known. What will Hannah do? Will she risk her life and livelihood to protect this young girl, or will she retain her high esteem in the eye of the Sultan? An adventurous, opulent and deliciously exciting read, peopled with fascinating, unforgettable characters (a court eunuch; the calculating Sultan’s mother; the beguiling harem ladies; and a very mysterious young beauty from Rome who shows up on Hannah’s doorstep causing much havoc), this novel is sure to please fans of The Midwife of Venice and extend Roberta’s reputation as one of the most beloved historical fiction authors. Roberta Rich has once again brought history to life to delight all readers. She divides her time between Vancouver and Mexico. Learn more at: www.robertarich.com
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
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Historical Thriller
Roberta Rich The Midwife of Venice
H “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
“Not only did Roberta Rich transport me to 16th century Venice with its seductive tapestries of smells, sights, textures, and beliefs, she involved me in a poignant story of seasoned love. Katherine Ashenburg
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
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annah Levi, a midwife in the Venetian ghetto is put in terrible danger. She has gained renown for her skill in coaxing reluctant babies out of their mother’s bellies using her “birthing spoons” as rudimentary forceps. One night a Christian nobleman, Conte Paolo di Padovani, 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. But a Papal edict has made it a crime, punishable by death, for Jews to give medical treatment to Christians. The Conte offers her a huge sum of money, enough to enable her to sail to Malta to ransom her beloved husband, Isaac. He was captured at sea and is a slave of the Knights of St. John. Hannah acquiesces and delivers the infant, Matteo, a child who captures her heart. As she prepares to depart for Malta to rescue Isaac, she discovers that the baby’s uncles are plotting to murder the child in order to seize the family fortune. In the absence of the Conte and his wife who are in Ferrara on urgent business, Hannah believes she must safeguard Matteo. She enlists her sister Jessica who is a courtesan and living as a Christian outside the ghetto. An outbreak of the plague traps them in Venice and makes them easy prey for the baby’s murderous uncles. Woven through Hannah’s travails are Isaac’s hardships as a slave in Malta. Blessed with wit and charm, he earns scraps of food as a scribe and pins his hopes for freedom on bartering his precious silkworm eggs. To reach Isaac, who believes she has died in the plague, Hannah must outsmart the Padovani family and sail to Malta before Isaac manages to buy his passage to a new life in Constantinople. Roberta Rich has crafted an enthralling story that makes 16th Century Venice throb with life and suspense. Her next novel will be set in Constantinople. She divides her time between Vancouver and Mexico. Learn more at: www.robertarich.com Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Hilary Scharper Perdita
H “Hilary Scharper deftly mines the beauty and wonder of both the human heart and nature in this haunting tale of enduring love.” Cathy Marie Buchanan
“The story moves effortlessly between two love stories, one from a hundred years ago, the other contemporary, both depicted with plausibility... Very suspenseful, the novel kept me guessing to the very end.” Roberta Rich
“Scharper’s prose. . .is just as measured, just as alluringly oldfashioned, as many a Pulitzer or Orange Prize winner before her.”
Globe And Mail
Hilary Scharper
istorian Garth Hellyer is bemused when he is assigned to interview Marged Brice, a resident of Clarkson Home for The Aged as part of his work on the Longevity Project. Official records indicate that she is 134 years old, arousing suspicions of bureaucratic error or major fraud. When Garth finally meets her, he is intrigued. Marged, looking as old as polished stone, her sharp mind occasionally drifting to reverie, tells him she wants to die but Perdita won’t let her. Not too old to be charmed by Garth, she entrusts him with her journal which he takes with him to his cottage near the Cape Prius lighthouse of Marged’s childhood. This remote peninsula on the Great Lakes was a summer respite for the elite, including a renowned artist who may have been Marged’s lover, and a prominent ornithologist whom Marged assisted. But Garth is also driven by his curiosity about Perdita, the name of the infant girl in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale who is left on a seacoast to die but is rescued by shepherds.
Hilary Scharper masterfully constructs Marged’s story set in the dawn of the 1900s and its impact on the unresolved issues in Garth’s life, offering us a glorious romance of gothic and modern. Fans of Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and Possession will enjoy the rich pageant of conflicting passions, wild storms, and the mystery of the supernatural. Hilary Scharper, who lives in Toronto, spent a decade as a lighthouse keeper on the Bruce Peninsula with her husband. She also is the author of a story collection, Dream Dresses, and God and Caesar at the Rio Grande (University of Minnesota Press) which won the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award. She received her Ph.D. from Yale and is currently Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Toronto.
Simon & Schuster Can 2013 La Courte Echelle Can (French) 2014 Sourcebooks US 2014/15
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Joey Slinger Nina, The Bandit Queen
N Joey Slinger’s wild and dark imagination, his subversive humor, and his surprising arcs of fancy have attracted passionate fans to his humor column which appeared several times a week in the Toronto Star. He has published two collections of his columns: No Axe Too Small to Grind, which won the Leacock Medal for Humour and If It’s A Jungle Out There, Why Do I Have to Mow the Lawn? Praise for Nina, The Bandit Queen “Funny, engaging and and original. I enjoyed it thoroughly.” Joy Fielding
“Joey Slinger’s best book yet. Nina ...is the kind of person who would steal your heart and steal your wallet...Read this book and weep. With tears of laughter.” Rod McQueen
ina Dolgoy grew up in a part of town so beaten down that even prostitutes and drug dealers have written it off. Still, she imagines that if the neighbourhood pool wasn’t boarded up, a rigorous swimming program might keep her four daughters from falling into degradation. The bitterly self-proclaimed “welfare queen” leads her community on a fund-raising, pool-fixing, self-improvement campaign. Unfortunately, the only way she can think to raise money herself is by robbing a bank. Unfortunately she isn’t very good at it. Coincidentally, her brother Frank gets out of jail and robs one. But it’s a put-up job, and unfortunately he double-crosses the bad guys who hired him and takes off with the loot. After accidentally knocking him off, the bad guys conclude that he stashed the cash in Nina’s house and start dismantling it around her ears. As mother-lion courageous as this makes her, it’s no use when even trusted friends turn out to want the money for themselves and believe she’s got it and is holding out on them. Nina and the girls have to flee for their lives. But what happens when their escape in a yellow school bus turns into a sublimely bizarre slowmotion chase? With the world watching live, she somehow has to find a way to to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes. This caper-in-reverse about an unfortunate, and unfortunately misunderstood, woman would be really sad if it wasn’t presented with a frankness so staggering it knocks the legs out from under you. It’s hard for your heart to break when you’re laughing out loud.
“It’s a fun ride that does what farce is meant to do: enjoyably fill the time.”
Toronto Star
Dundurn World 2012
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Fiction
Fiction
Jaron Summers grew up in Edmonton, Canada and lives in Los Angeles where is an author and screen writer.
Jaron Summers
Jaron Summers
The Adjal of Jimmy Temple
The Failed Life Of A Mormon Missionary
Jimmy Temple is a private detective whose specialty is finding lost lovers for the romantically inclined in mobile Los Angeles. He is approached by Wanda Kincaid to solve the gruesome murder of her wealthy father Jack. In trying to solve the case, Jimmy enters a strange, macabre world. Wanda confides that the secret of Jack’s fortune reaches back to his family’s decaying funeral home. There, in a bedroom above the wet room where bodies are embalmed, Kincaid could supposedly tap into psychic powers and foresee the precise moments of other people’s deaths.
For those who love the A young man’s comic quest Broadway comic musi- for sex and God young cal The Book of Mormon Jerry Wonder is a 19-yearold Mormon missionary who leaves South Dakota in 1962 to save souls in New Zealand for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder Wonder’s path is fraught with challenge. Against the strictures of the LDS church he is a compulsive masturbator, or in Mormon parlance, a “selfpollinator.” Jerry makes a solemn covenant with his Father in Heaven that each time he self-pollinates, he will harvest a soul for Jesus. After one month, he owes his Father in Heaven 40 converts.
Skeptical of the psychic reports, Jimmy spends the night above the wet room only to catch a glimpse of his own adjal (the moment of his death). If his newfound psychic ability is reliable, Jimmy has only two days to unravel the sweetest scam this side of Hell and avert his own death. Whatever happens, Jimmy cannot avoid the cataclysm of violence that contorts his life. Original eBook Rights available
Salvation of a sort comes when Susan flies to his side. They will be expelled from the church and disgrace their families. Within its comic frame, the novel is informative about the Mormon Church. It also reveals the attempts of older men to stifle and control young men.
Original eBook Rights Available
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
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.”
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. 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.
Hamilton Spectator
Manuscript Available
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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 six previous 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. Join Dusseldorf ’s top detective for another mystery in the world of classical rock stars, where life and death hang on a single note.
Dundurn Canada/US 2012 Actes Sud France 2013
The second installment in the Hermann Preiss Series.
“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 Napoleon RendezVous US/ Canada 2008
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Parenting
Michael Ungar, Ph.D. I Still Love You:
Nine Tips for Parenting Really Difficult Kids
M
ichael Ungar, who is world-renowned on topics of families and youth in crisis, knows about troubled children. He knows what puts them at risk and he knows what makes them safe and resilient.
Michael Ungar is a Professor of Social Work, and a marriage and family therapist, based in Halifax at Dalhousie University. He is internationally recognized for his work in more than a dozen countries on resilience and at-risk youth. Learn more at: www.michaelungar.com
In this beautiful and helpful book, Michael Ungar takes us into his world each Wednesday when he meets with three families with very troubled children. But here, Michael is not the all-knowing therapist. He, too, had been a troubled teen, growing up in an emotionally neglectful and physically abusive home, and he shares his struggles. In the group, Michael discusses nine strategies for raising problem free and flourishing children. They are: structure, consequences, parent-child connections, lots of peer and adult relationships, a powerful identity, a sense of control, a sense of belonging, spirituality and life purpose, fair and just treatment by others, and safety and support. Hopeful in tone, and using knowledge gathered across cultures, I Still Love you: Nine Tips for Parenting Really Difficult Kids does more than just tell parents what to do. Recounting the stories of three struggling families, Ungar shows that it is never too late to help a child. I Still Love you is not only a guide for parents and a gritty tale of the everyday heroics of parenting challenging kids, but it is also a singular work of literature. Dr. Ungar is also the author of We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids, Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens, and Playing at Being Bad: The Hidden Resilience of Troubled Teens. He appears regularly on radio and TV and is in demand as a lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences and workshops for parents and professionals. For details see his web site www.michaelungar.com
Dundurn (World) 2015
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Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Non-Fiction
Michael Ungar Ph.D We Generation Raising Socially Responsible Kids
I “A must read …Michael Ungar’s book is rich in advice and anecdotes showing how we can help kids avoid the trap of ‘me, mine, and more’ and embrace instead ‘us, ours, and enough.’’
Barbara Coloroso
“Each of these eight, action-oriented chapters offers anecdotes, self-evaluation tools, lists of activities and strategies for generating excitement about being part of a wider world... [This book] is timely.”
Publishers Weekly
“In this uplifting book, Ungar reminds parents of the essential work ahead if we hope to raise socially responsible children. Children, Ungar says, “want roots, wings and an audience to appreciate them.”
Montreal Gazette
Da Capo/Perseus US 2009 Allen & Unwin Australia 2009 McClelland & Stewart Canada 2009
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n the age-old lament about “the kids these days,” a disturbing new charge is emerging. It is becoming increasingly evident that we are raising a generation of selfish, self-centered kids with a gigantic sense of entitlement. It is bad for them and bad for society. In We Generation, Michael Ungar reassures parents and educators that they can acquire the skills to raise children to think “we” in “me” thinking times. He shows through stories from his clinical work with families and from research around the world that children want to connect. They want to be touched: physically, emotionally and spiritually. In his warm, compassionate voice, Michael Ungar provides practical suggestions on teaching children responsibility, and fostering respect and altruism. He also provides concrete suggestions on how parents can remain connected to their children at the same time that they want and need to separate. He argues persuasively that forging connections at home is still the best way to protect kids from the dangers of early sexual activity, drug abuse, delinquency and other risky behavior. Michael Ungar is a Professor of Social Work, and a marriage and family therapist, based in Halifax at Dalhousie University. He is internationally recognized for his work in more than a dozen countries on resilience and at-risk youth. Dr. Ungar is also the author of several previous books including: Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive (McClelland & Stewart, 2007; Les Editions de L’Homme, 2008; Allen & Unwin, 2008), and Playing at Being Bad: The Hidden Resilience of Troubled Teens (McClelland & Stewart, 2007). He appears regularly on radio and TV and is in demand as a lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences and workshops for parents and professionals.
See his website www.michaelungar.com
Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Rangeley Wallace Stubborn Love “Rangeley Wallace is a hard, fresh wind out of the south, with a voice full of particularity and a born sense of story.” Rangeley Wallace moved from the South 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
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
Manuscript Available
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Anne River Siddons
I
t seems like a benign case of wedding jitters when Alexa Cunningham’s ambivalence about her forthcoming marriage to the glamorous David Lassiter grips her. But in this beautifully told tale, rich in the cultural texture of the contemporary South, it points to Alexa’s unresolved issues from her past. Four years earlier, Alexa’s happy life script was written. She and her boyfriend Nick and her dearest friend Kat had moved to Carsonville, Alabama. Their plans included marriage to Nick and a position in the family business for Alexa, legal training for Nick, and medical studies for Kat. Then tragedy strikes. When Alexa and Kat are horseback riding, Kat suffers a terrible fall on one of Alexa’s horses. It leaves Kat a paraplegic, and an ensuing lawsuit against Alexa’s family envelops everyone in anger. Relationships are ruptured. Confused, abandoned by her friend, and guilt-ridden, Alexa flees her hometown and Nick, and reestablishes herself as an investment banker in Atlanta where she is swept away by the sophisticated jewellery designer David. Coming back to Carsonville to be with her father, stirs Alexa’s longings for Nick, the family construction business, and the life she expected to have. To her shock, Kat also is back in Carsonville, and once again is close to her family. Ironically, everyone has moved on except Alexa. And she has lost her footing. Can she go back? With compassion, humor and deep understanding, Rangeley Wallace weaves a story of family, friendship and love to engage the heart. Beverley Slopen Literary Agency
Fiction
Rangeley Wallace Things Are Going to Slide
“Rangeley Wallace is a hard, fresh wind out of the south, with a voice full of particularity and a born sense of story.”
Anne River Siddons
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
“
Rangeley Wallace has beautifully rendered the texture of Southern life in this gripping tale of love, betrayal, and the strength of family,” wrote Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump. “Things Are Going to Slide is a remarkable achievement.” A law professor at a university in south Alabama, heroine Marilee’s life quickly begins to disintegrate when her husband leaves her - pregnant- for a man. A cheating former lover steals the prestigious law chair from under her nose. And, to make matters worse, at the law clinic she runs, an indigent high school girl who she’s known since childhood is accused of murdering her newborn. One reviewer described Things Are Going to Slide as “smart chick lit, mom-lit, and law-lit.” Midwest Book Review called Things Are Going to Slide “a powerful novel of chaos and recovery that will attract any interested in strong stories of professional women.” A romantic, smart page-turner, steeped in the tradition of southern literature, Things Are Going to Slide is “the kind of book that makes you keep reading long after you meant to turn out the light.” If you loved Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, you’ll love Things Are Going to Slide. Rangeley Wallace moved from the South toWashington, D.C. where she is an author and a lawyer. She also has experience in a legal clinic. She is the author of No Defense (St. Martin’s Press). Learn more at: www.rangeleywallace.com
Click here for a link to the ebook
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Sports Memoir
Brock Walsh Die Happy Golf, Life, and the Perils of Par
I Advance Praise “Die Happy is a delight. I’ve never played golf and thought I had zero interest in it. But I’m drawn to literary tales about drive and obsession, about the need to extract lessons from painful experience, about the tireless search for aesthetic perfection. On all these levels, Walsh succeeds admirably. To my amazement, I found myself following the book’s final eighteen holes with tense fascination. Walsh gives us a big-hearted adventure.”
Brad Leithauser Author of The Art Student’s War
“Stirring, instructive and beautifully written, Walsh’s tale of his quest for par golf is a free drop for anyone whose life has gotten lost in the woods.”
Roger Director Author of I Dream In Blue
“Brock Walsh has captured the essence of the game of golf-- it is the quest!”
n a chaotic and uncertain world, the goals we set can soothe our fears and guide our destiny. Brock Walsh, a Los Angeles songwriter and avid golfer, pursued a two-year quest to shoot a round of “level par,” a feat achieved by one amateur in a thousand. What he didn’t know was that life was cuing up its own slew of challenges that would test him far more. Walsh takes us on a wild ride of harrowing reversals and surprising victories. He is betrayed by his business partner, loses his job, has to fight to keep his home, while his wife battles a life-threatening drug resistant bacteria. Staring into this dark vista, he is forced to contemplate deeper issues of aging, courage and self. For Walsh, who has had a sterling career writing songs for the major stars of his generation, the change in fortune could not have been more vertiginous. Die Happy is a golf story, a love story, and a life story. Whether he takes us backstage with the Rolling Stones, into the studio with Michael Jackson, or down the tree line at the municipal golf course with the dawn patrol, Walsh weaves a tale that is smart, funny, and heartbreakingly real.
After graduating from Harvard, Brock Walsh began his professional life as a touring musician and back-up singer for Linda Ronstadt, Karla Bonoff, and Andrew Gold with whom he produced such hits as “Lonely Boy” and “Thank You For Being a Friend.” He was a staff producer for Quincy Jones and has written and produced hits for such artists as Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, The Pointer Sisters, and Aretha Franklin. Brock and his wife are living in the Boston area of his youth; he is an Admissions Officer at Harvard College.
Eddie Merrins Author Playing A Round With the Little Pro
Manuscript available
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Catherine Graham Lyndsay Green Francesca Grosso Don Gutteridge Kate Hilton David Healy Tod Hoffman Blanche Howard David Israelson Mary Jackman Basil Johnston Martin Knelman Eric Koch Jack Kuper Will Kymlicka Elliott Leyton S.F. MacKay Dr. Mailis-Gagnon Michael Marrus Dona Matthews Leon Major Rona Maynard Jack McClelland Ken McGoogan
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Joey Slinger Daniel Stoffman Jaron Summers Mike Tanner Mike Tennant Stephen Tesher Lionel Tiger Morley Torgov Harold Troper Michael Ungar Robert Jan Van Pelt Michael Valpy Rangeley Wallace Brock Walsh William Weintraub Jennifer Welsh Margaret Wente Richard Worzel Beryl Young Sherri Zickefoose
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