False Impressions

Finished December 16

False Impressions by Sandra Nikolai

This is the first book in a series featuring a ghostwriter and investigative crime journalist. Megan Scott and her husband Tom's marriage has been more stressful lately as their efforts to have children have been unsuccessful. Tom travels a lot for work, and is off on another trip as the novel begins.

Megan is starting a new project as a ghostwriter for investigative journalist Michael Elliott, and when they realize they knew each other years before, they begin to develop a friendship as well.

When Tom goes off for a retreat, Megan doesn't have any concerns until police arrive at her door telling her that he and his female companion are dead. The discovery of his infidelity at the same time as his death is confusing for Megan emotionally, and she relies heavily on Michael for support. 

It also puts her under suspicion for his murder, and the ties between her and the crime continue to grow. The police seem to have their minds already made up, and Michael and Megan begin their own investigation to find the truth. 

I enjoyed the premise of the novel and the plot. As the book began, some of the dialogue seemed stilted and awkward, but that improved as the book went on. While it took me a while to get truly interested, I was glad I stuck with it. A good read.

The King of Montréal

Finished August 21

The King of Montréal by Daniela I. Norris

This is an interesting alternative history novel. It is 1800, and Louis-Charles, the Dauphin of France, has ended up alone in Montreal at the age of fifteen. He had been smuggled out of jail in Paris and transported to the countryside to live with family friends, but when he began to look too much like his father as he grew up, they decided for his safety and the safety of the family he was living with to send him, with his tutor as an escort, to America, where he would go to the secretary of the late Benjamin Franklin and stay there. It would be up to him whether it was ever safe for him to show himself and return to France as king or live his life abroad. 

Unfortunately, the ship he was on was shipwrecked in a storm, and he was rescued by Basque fishermen and dropped off in Montreal. He lived on the streets, and tried to make enough money to hire an indigenous guide to take him to his destination in the U.S. He found himself making both friends and enemies, and his education and bearing shows as he navigates the unlikely place he has found himself in. 

This is a novel aimed at young adult readers, and with the main character being fifteen, that makes sense. It introduces readers to elements of history that are well-researched and incorporate real history as much as possible while giving the Dauphin a future that he didn't have. I really enjoyed this novel, and the way we get into the thoughts of the main character. 

Recommended for teens that like history, unexpected heroes, or a touch of romance. 

Bookworm

Finished July 30

Bookworm by Robin Yeatman

I picked up this book at my local library based on the title and the fact that it is this year's book choice for Markham Reads. Because I hadn't read anything about the book before starting it, I found myself getting drawn into the story of a submissive wife, who has an inner life that is very unexpected. Victoria is a massage therapist who works at a local spa in Montreal and spends most of her free time reading. She doesn't socialize much, just with one friend from high school, Holly. Victoria also likes watching people. She believes that she can "read" them as well, sensing information about their lives that is surprisingly detailed. 

As the book begins, Victoria is seated at her local cafe, reading, when she notices an attractive man reading the same book. She is immediately captivated by him, but he doesn't seem to notice her and leaves soon after. Victoria is unfamiliar with the feelings that he aroused in her and is a bit unsettled, finding her thoughts wandering to him despite what else she does. 

We soon find that Victoria is married to Eric, a lawyer hoping to be offered a partnership. She is Eric's second wife, his first having left him for someone else of a lower class, and we see that he is a controlling figure. Their condo is decorated to his tastes, the food she makes is for his limited palate, and the clothes she wears are mostly his choices. 

As we learn the background of how they came to be married, despite the lack of real interest in each other, we also see how Victoria's inner life is her escape. She often gets ideas from the books she reads, and she often fantasizes about her husband's death. 

She also commonly experiences an out-of-body sensation at night just before she sleeps, where she looks down on herself and her bedroom from above. But this experience soon grows to allow her to float beyond her home and observe others that she senses strongly, in particular the man from the cafe. 

Victoria's thoughts are hers alone, not shared with her ambitious lawyer parents, her critical mother-in-law, or her friend Holly. And they are often dark and plotting. 

But when those thoughts begin to have real shape in her daily world, she finds she might actually get what she wants. 

This book is disturbing and my opinion of Victoria changed radically as the book unfolded. This is a unique and startling tale of desire. 

Six Weeks with You

Finished March 11

Six Weeks with You by Janet Koops

This novella is the first in a series called Lost and Found Family, set in Montreal. Vicki Meyers has recently moved to Montreal from Ottawa. She's ready for a fresh start, leaving behind an emotionally abusive boyfriend and a life that didn't fit her. 

She's got a small studio apartment in an old house, a part-time job waitressing, and is just starting to volunteer at the local animals shelter. And she's finding her way back to herself, partly through her art. She's always had a skill for drawing and she spends a lot of time using her art to let her feelings out.

At the shelter, she finds herself tasked with spending time with Gunner, a dog who's been there a while, trying to socialize him to make him more adoptable, and she finds herself connecting with him. She also gets taken under the wing of an older volunteer and invited out. 

Unexpectedly finding herself interested in a young man, Vicki decides to let herself try new things, and gives Daniel a chance even though she knows it won't be long-term.

An interesting book, with a character looking for a fresh start on her life, hopeful and upbeat. 

Crossing the City

Finished August 24

Crossing the City by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman

I read the first book in this series Crossing the Continent a few years ago. This picks up shortly after that book left off, and Nana has been in Montreal for a few months now. Part of the reason that she is there is to look after her infant brother Theo, something she resented at first, but she has now grown fond of him. As the first World War has begun, Nana is worried about the safety of her family in Montreal and comes up with a plan to keep them safe.

We also see the story of her mother Maria, as she makes the decision to leave Providence, Rhode Island, where she has been living for years. She has a brother in the RCMP who lives in Montreal, and sisters there as well. She has been seeing an older man after the supposed death of her husband, who did not return from a sea voyage, and who she suspects has a second family elsewhere. Finding herself pregnant and faced with a dilemma, she decides it is time to return to Canada with and ask her brother for assistance. 

We see her reception in Montreal and the family interaction as she reunites with her siblings. 

With Nana, as we see her go off to set her plan in motion, we see the decisions that she makes and how she deals with unexpected obstacles. For some, she takes actions herself, and for others, she is given advice by kind strangers. Nana grows here, in experience and knowledge, and has good instincts. She observes the workplaces of her mother and aunt and sees how they are different than what she envisioned. 

I liked seeing both these characters dealing with difficult decisions and circumstances and making a choice that feels right for them. 

Gravity Is the Thing

Finished August 14 

Gravity Is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty

This book, set mostly in Australia, with a short section set in Montreal, is the story of thirty-six-year-old single mom Abigail Sorensen. The book opens just before her thirty-sixth birthday, where she is on a small island off Tasmania in response to an invitation she received for a big reveal. Starting twenty years ago, when she was sixteen, she began getting random chapters to something called The Guidebook in the mail. She has faithfully sent in address changes and responded most of the time to an annual reflection prompt and is interested to find out what is behind the mailings. However, another part of her associates these mailings with her missing brother, as that also happened when she turned sixteen, just after her first mailed chapter. Despite have a good police liaison and following up every lead, they still don't know what happened to her brother, so part of her hopes for that truth as well. 

She finds a group of people near her age, all of whom had kept getting the chapters from The Guidebook, just as she had. The getaway is run by a man named Wilbur, who is the son of the couple who sent out the chapters. After a couple days spent doing a variety of activities,  a select group of those attending are let in on the secret behind the chapters, and the reaction is underwhelming. Some are disappointed, some upset.

After she goes back home, Abigail is invited again to continue with follow-up sessions and something in the universe seems to be telling her to attend. 

There is a lot going on here. We gradually learn Abigail's story, about what happened when her brother Robert disappeared and how her family dealt with the situation. We know that her mom has a new partner Xuang, who Abigail likes, and we learn about her ex-husband Finnegan. Abigail's son Oscar, four years old as the book begins is a large presence in the book too. Abigail trained as a lawyer, but now she runs her own cafe, one called the Happiness Cafe, in north Sydney. 

We see a selection of the chapters that she received, and they are pretty off the wall, and quite short. As I said, they arrive in a completely random order, and she didn't read all of them, or follow all the instructions that they gave her, although she did some, and they did have an effect on her life as she thinks back. 

As we see her relate to the various people in her life: employees, friends, family, and the new people she meets at Wilbur's sessions, we begin to learn about Abigail. I liked her. I think she'd be fun to know. We see her worries and her daily life. We see some of her thoughts as she goes through her days. This is a book about a woman's life, as she considers it and makes the decisions that will determine where it goes next. I really enjoyed this book. It is hard to classify. There are elements of romance in it at times, but mostly not. There is the mystery of her brother's disappearance, which continues throughout, but is just one of the plot lines. It is really just about life.

The Good Liar

Finished April 7
The Good Liar by Catherine McKenzie

This novel begins with a terrible event that took place in downtown Chicago. One of the main characters in the book, Cecily is going to meet her husband Tom at his work when the building he is working in has an explosion. Cecily comes out of the subway to witness the event. A photographer captures her image, and she ends up becoming the poster child for the horrible event. More than 500 people were killed in the explosion and its aftermath, and more than 2000 injured.
The book then moves to a time approaching a year later. Cecily is on the advisory board of the organization that disperses the money raised for victims of the tragedy. Another member of this board is Franny, a young woman who was adopted as an infant, but discovered her birth mother shortly before the explosion. Her birth mother was a good friend of Cecily, who worked for the same company as Tom.
Another person working in the building was a good friend of Cecily's, who was also the mother of two young girls. Cecily has two teenage children of her own, Cassie and Will, and has remained strong for them. As the anniversary approaches, the man who photographed Cecily, Teo, is now involved in making a documentary around the tragedy, focusing on some of the families, including Cecily's.
Meanwhile, another woman, Kate, is hundreds of miles away in Montreal, working as a nanny and trying to create a new life. Kate has been hiding her connection to the event in Chicago, and is dreading the media coverage of the anniversary.
Both women, Kate and Cecily, have secrets that they fear coming to light, as we gradually learn about them and what they are hiding, we learn that there are others with secrets as well.
This was a book I found hard to put down, and definitely recommended.

Wonder

Finished April 21
Wonder by Dominique Fortier, translated by Sheila Fischman

This gem of a novel has three sections. The main characters in the first two sections are real historical figures, but Fortier has given them different experiences beyond their real lives.
The first is set in the early twentieth century in Martinique and begins just a few days before the devastating eruption of Mount Pelée. The entire city of Saint Pierre was destroyed and only one man survived. It is this man, known here by the name of Baptiste Cyparis. Like the real man, Cyparis is approached by a representative of Barnum & Bailey's circus and tours with them as one of the sideshow attractions. Here, Cyparis is known as The Man Who Lived Through Doomsday, and he befriends a young boy looking after some of the animals, and in turn begins a relationship with the boy's mother. This section gives a feel for both the loneliness and notoriety of the circus people, and the hierarchy within their community.
The second is set in a wider section of time during the same era. In England, we see the development from childhood of the mathematician Edward Love, a man famous for using math to explain earth's inner workings. Edward falls in love with a woman who is also one fascinated by earth and it's inner workings, but for her, they translate into music. Their natural affinity leads them to explore further and bring each other epiphanies as their own insights lead to breakthroughs for the other. The travel to Italy and visit the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii, some of the happiest days of their lives. The real Edward Love discovered Love numbers which are used to measure the elastic response of the Earth to the influence of tides, and Love waves which are still used to study the Earth's crust and earthquakes.
The third section of the book is set in Montreal, mostly on Mont Royal itself. Rose is a young woman who walks dogs every day, taking them up the path to the summit, near the cemetery. Through a series of gradual events she comes to know a young man who works in the cemetery, and the two of them grow close.
This is a novel of language, of ideas, of the subtle interactions between people. The original French edition was a finalist for the Prix littéraire des collégiens.

Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather

Finished July 30
Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather by Pierre Szalowski

This novel is set around the 1998 ice storm that hit Montreal. The 11-year-old boy who narrates the story is the kind of kid who notices what goes on around him.
He can see that the Christmas present his dad bought him is something his mother didn't approve. He can see that his parents aren't getting along like they used to. He doesn't want to be another kid whose parents aren't together, like his friend Alex. But it looks like that is what is going to happen. So he prays to the sky to help him.
And then the ice storm hits, and it gets worse and worse. We see how it affects his neighbours. Julie, the disaffected stripper to only wants to be loved for something other than her body. Julie's young cat Brutus, whom her other two cats put in his place. Boris, the young Russian mathematician who has been observing and calibrating his fishes behaviour for months, and for whom a power failure is a potential disaster. Simon, a psychoanalyst, and Michel, who works for the weather office, an older gay couple whom everyone thinks are brothers, and who worry about how coming out will affect the way neighbours treat them. Pipo, Simon and Michel's little dog. Alex and his unhappy father Alexis. The residents of the seniors' home just down the street.
So, you might expect a book about this natural disaster, that affected millions of people, would be unhappy one, but it isn't. The storm brought people out of their homes, had them helping neighbours they hadn't even talked to before, opening people's hearts to new friends, unveiling leadership skills that had been buried until now. And so these neighbours get to know each other and find that they like each other and the feeling of good will towards each grows and strengthens and extends to others.
The author experienced a similar community-building phenomenon when he and his wife experience the ice storm shortly after moving to Montreal, and it is this that made then stay in Canada, and inspired this novel.
This is a feel-good novel, that will bring a smile to your face.

Beautiful Lie the Dead

Finished January 4
Beautiful Lie the Dead by Barbara Fradkin
This is the second book in the Inspector Green series that I've read (This Thing of Darkness is the other one). They are very well done and involve Green's personal life as well as his work life. Set in Ottawa, they evoke the flavour of the city. This is a winter novel, with snow a key part of the plot.
When a young woman vanishes less than a month before her wedding, there is uncertainty as to whether there is foul play. Bodies are discovered, trails are followed, and leads go back decades to earlier events. Some of the trail leads to Montreal as well, and the detective introduced there is an intriguing new character I'd like to see more of. Lots of family themed plot here and a glimpse into the power of wealth to change outcomes. A great mystery for this time of year.

River City

Finished September 19
River City by John Farrow
This wide-ranging novel was a little long for me. At first I found it tough going, but a little more than halfway through it started to flow for me. It helped that it told you what time period you were in. I think once I saw the connection directly between the different time periods that helped.
Taking the reader from the time of Cartier until the early 1970s, this book covers a great deal of Quebec history. The author mixes real history with fiction in a seamless way that makes me interested in reading some straight-up history to figure out which parts are real. I feel like I learned a lot of history, but am unsure which parts are real.
He takes us through many explorers of New France, and through many leaders. Particularly prominent characters include Houde, Duplessis, and Trudeau. These historical figures and the fictional ones alongside them come to life here.
This book is history, social commentary, and a mystery all rolled into one. We have the struggle of French-English that still exists in Quebec. We have the corruption that still apparently exists. We have real history of riots, FLQ, and discovery. We have the role of the Catholic Church. And we have passion throughout.
All the main characters throughout time were passionate about what they were doing. That really comes through here and makes the book.
A good, if rather long, read.

Black Alley

Finished September 11
Black Alley by Mauricio Segura, translated from the French by Dawn M. Cornelio
This is a short intense novel set in the Côte-des-Neiges area of Montreal. Marcelo is the son of Chilean refugees and a quiet boy. Cleo is the new boy at school and is from Haiti. It is grade five for the two boys and they both run track. A bond is formed as they both make the top relay team for the school.
Years later there is a rivalry between two gangs, Latino Power and the Bad Boys with events and revenge escalating between the groups. The leaders of the two groups must decide whether the old childhood friendship will influence what happens next or race ties will triumph.
Set in a diverse multicultural community in a poor neighbourhood, this novel moves back and forth seamlessly between the two time periods, adding to the feeling of intensity. The use of language adds to the reality of the scenes. The way dialogue is used here is interesting with conversations moving in and out of each other.
This is an interesting novel, showing an environment unfamiliar to me, but relevant today to society as a whole. We see the struggle for acceptance that the youth have and how the different relationships influence them.
This is a good book to show the issues that are relevant on our streets today.

The O'Briens

Finished September 1
The O'Briens by Peter Behrens
This is the saga of Joe O'Brien and his family. It starts in the Pontiac region along the Ottawa River, but ranges across North America to the Canadian Rockies, to Venice Beach, California and back again.
Joe spends most of his married life in Montreal, as does one of his brothers. We see the strong feelings around families here with Joe's support for his siblings and theirs for him and his family. We see marital difficulties, influences of war, and the more mundane everyday aspects of life.
Joe is involved in the Canadian railway boom, the military industry of the World Wars, and construction of many infrastructure projects. He dreams big and yet sometimes doesn't know what he really wants. We see how people love each other, but don't always understand each other.
This is an engaging book, with characters that captured the imagination. I sat up late to finish it to a satisfying ending.

Toby: a man

Finished February 10
Toby: a man by Todd Babiak
Toby grew up in Montreal and now works for a TV station there doing a show on etiquette for the modern man. The night before the election, Toby finds his father sitting in his parents' driveway in their car, which is on fire. Trying to cope with this incident, his father's increasingly strange behaviour, and his own lack of courage in dealing with it, Toby struggles through the night. Faced with the added distress of the betrayal of his girlfriend, he undergoes a minor meltdown on live television. This causes him to lose his job. Having lived beyond his means in order to play the "successful man about town," he swiftly also loses his car and condo and is living back in his parents' basement.
When a brief encounter with a female in distress leads her to dump her toddler on him without warning and disappear, his life becomes something he doesn't recognize. As he takes the advice of old friends and family, he finds a new purpose to his life and finds that being a man means more than handkerchiefs and dressing well. A real eye-opener.

Great Canadian Fiction

Finished December 31
The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman
I got this book back in the summer for a birthday gift and now wonder why I never picked it up earlier (I know, I was reading the library books I had to return first!). It is wonderful. Inspired by one of Canada's first woman doctors, Dr. Maude Abbott, and with each section introduced by a quote from her, it takes you completely into another world. We follow the life of Agnes White, from her childhood to after the first World War. Agnes exhibits her love of science at a young age and fights doggedly to become a medical doctor. She is helped along by her governess and mentor, who steps into her life just when she needs her the most. Agnes continuously longs for and emulates her father who walked out of her life when she was only five, and we see how this loss deeply affects her the rest of her life.
This amazing novel will be one of my top reads of the year.