Finding Color
Candace MacPhie
“The heat from the pavement seeps into my sensible black shoes as I trudge across the parking lot toward the two-storey brown building. I heave open the glass door and cool air ripples across my skin. Robotically, I dig a beige cardigan out of my black tote and wrap it around my shoulders. My stomach rolls as I traipse down the short hallway to my doctor’s office.”
Welcome to the five-volume travelling circus that is Candace MacPhie’s rollicking and sometimes raunchy recollections of her backpacking adventures in the 1990s. One woman. One backpack. And a whole lot of gumption.
Finding Color is the first of these MacPhie adventures. Volume two is already available, volume three is in the works, and the final pair will be on shelves before those proverbial lambs can shake their tails. All five are self-published MacPhie creations — which, in this day and age, is pretty much the best way to do things, provided you get the best possible advice and services.
And about that American spelling of “colour” in the title? MacPhie says the issue was debated long and hard, but in the end, “color” won out.
Contact the author at [email protected].
The Legacy
Gail Bowen
“In spring, summer and early autumn, when we’re at our cottage at Lawyers Bay, my husband, Zack, and I usually sleep with our windows open. Except for the occasional tang of skunk, the air we breathe in is a gift, and on the Saturday morning of August 27th, our bedroom was fragrant with the scent of stargazer lilies and summer’s last roses.”
Thus begins another mind-spinning adventure with Joanne Kilbourn, Canada’s favourite off-beat, mystery-solving, Regina-based super sleuth.
This time around, the central character in The Legacy is actually a book — an autobiography of a man named Steven Brooks. Apparently, there are some fishy stories buried in the past of the book’s subject. Before long, questions arise about long-ago murders, trials and convictions. As intrepid as ever, Joanne unravels all the threads and threats. Or does she?
We first met Joanne Kilbourn in the 1990 novel Deadly Appearances, and she has since solved over 20 peculiar puzzles. The Legacy, published by ECW Press in 2023, is another sharp addition to the canon.
Gail Bowen lives and writes in Regina. Find out more at www.gailbowen.com.
Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons
Charlotte Gray
“Horse-drawn vehicles were everywhere in Manhattan in the 1850s — carts, carriages, wagons, phaetons. Archival photos of the city capture neither the noise of their jangling harnesses and clattering hooves — the soundtrack of the city — nor the stench of fly-covered horse droppings. Even more alarming was the clatter of a four-in-hand coach hurtling at full tilt down the middle of the newly developed Fifth Avenue. Shocked pedestrians scrambled to get out of the way, then scowled at the flamboyant speedster in a bright green coat as he cracked his whip.”
This is our introduction to Jennie Jerome — later to become the mother of Winston Churchill. Her story, in this sprawling yet highly engaging biography, is told alongside that of Sara Delano, who would go on to give birth to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Both women were born into upper-class American families in 1854, and both played crucial roles in guiding their sons to the very peak of political power — one in Britain, the other in the United States.
Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons explores how two women, with dramatically different personalities, helped shape sons whose legacies continue to echo in world affairs.
Published by Simon & Schuster in 2023, this is the latest of nearly a dozen acclaimed works of literary nonfiction by Charlotte Gray. Learn more at www.charlottegray.ca.
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