Atlantic Books

Atlantic Books

Locate me
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romance

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The seasonal changes of the land, sea and the skies above feature large and luminous in Robert Burt’s anthology Even Lovers Drown, published 14 years after his last book of poetry. Divided into six sections, this latest collection comprises 44 poems from his four previous books of poetry, in addition to 13 new poems including the title poem, a line taken from WB Yeat’s poem, “The Mermaid.”

Inspired by the natural world, Burt’s poetry blends the pastoral with the romantic, weaving themes of love and loss, wandering and discovery.

Many of Burt’s poems read like hymns to the “ancient, breathing, wild hills” and the “never-ending shorelines” (as he notes in his introduction) of his beloved island home, as in the poem “Evening Service:”

In this nine o’clock/Watery purple afterglow/Everything is illuminated/Including me.
I’ve finally been confirmed/Here on the beach rock pew./The sunset is my communion/The water song is my hymn.
The sermon is written/On the curve of a seagull’s wing/Sailing into the crimson sky/Full of the next day’s hope.

Reflecting the adolescent musings in the untitled poems of the “The Boys of Summer: notes for a biography” section, Burt experiments with informal structure:

hot july rain/soft as a tongue/sounded its reggae rhythm/upon the cabin roof/boys of summer
slept like babies/in long jamaican dreams/where the drumbeat moon/hung like a big heart pumping light/across the onyx lake

Some of Burt’s word pairings are unusual yet apt, such as the “harshly snug cove” describing “Grates Cove in November.”

And, like finding a piece of translucent blue beach glass, there are the occasional gems, among the oft sentimental, such as the final line of the poem “November Harbour,” where he writes:

The sea is left alone to beat itself to death.

Not unpredictably, after a considerable writing career, Burt takes a backward glance in several of the new poems. Ruminating on his life as a poet he writes:

And I drank with praise and plenty,/I feared I had too much,/but the poetry came like a talon,/and I craved her raven touch.

Even Lovers Drown: New and Selected Poems
Robert Burt
Innisfree Press

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One part adventure-romance, one part mismatched hero tale and one part commentary on the marginalization of the Mi’kmaq, Argimou: The Legend of the Micmac might seem complicated at first glance. However, its overarching message of acceptance and understanding is much more prominent than any of its complexities.

Argimou, written by Douglass Smith Huyghue, takes place after the fall of Fort Beausejour, near modern day Aulac, NB in 1755. After learning that his fiancée, Clarence Forbes, has been kidnapped by the Maliseet, Edward Molesworth looks to Mi’kmaw Argimou, who was captured during the battle, to help find his beloved. Arigmou agrees, in exchange for his freedom and because the subject of his affection, Waswetchul, has also been taken.

Together the unlikely duo and a few others move across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on their quest.

From a modern point of view, Argimou is a good story, but Huyghue’s focus on geography and contextual summaries bring it down, especially in the beginning. These long passages can run on, leading readers to set the book aside rather quickly. Also, as an adventure tale, there doesn’t seem to be much action, minus the final battle, making the whole story seem bland.

Despite these faults, Argimou should be read in a historical context. Originally published in 1847, it presents Indigenous peoples in a more favourable light, going against popular opinion of the time, Arigmou is not portrayed as an unforgiving, monstrous savage or even a side character or sidekick. He a protagonist and title character; he is a sympathetic, honourable and relatable hero. His characterization would have asked Victorian readers to look beyond contemporary stereotypes and societal conventions. It is that approach to Argimou as a character that makes the whole book a worthwhile read, even for for modern audiences.

Argimou
Douglass Smith Huyghue
Wilfrid Laurier University Press

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When Hildy Sangster discovers that the psychological study she signed up for is trying to determine if a romantic relationship between random strangers can be “encouraged,” she is deeply dismayed. But when the universe seems to be telling her to give it a try, she decides to take the plunge. Meanwhile, Paul Bergin just wants the $40 participants receive upon completion of the assignment, which consists of simply answering 36 questions. As partners, Hildy and Paul must answer these questions together. And so begins a hilarious, oftentimes wacky, yet equally touching and thoroughly delightful romantic comedy.

In all of her novels for middle grade and young adult readers, author Vicki Grant has demonstrated a true penchant for creating slightly offbeat characters that manage to be equal parts entertaining and relatable. That strength is on full display here as well. As Hildy and Paul work their way through the assigned questions, readers slowly gain greater insight into their characters. The witty dialogue helps bring the two protagonists vividly to life and keeps the plot well paced and believable. The story is told in a combination of ways, including Hildy and Paul’s initial question-and-answer session and their subsequent Facebook messages which form the basic framework into which the rest of the story is woven.

Realistic, lively and hilarious, the ongoing discussions make this book easily accessible. The gradual revelations of the events of their lives provide depth that will resonate with most readers of contemporary YA fiction. An inriguing premise and quirky, oddly endearing characters make this book a joy to read.

36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You
Vicki Grant
Running Press Teens. Hachette Book Group

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June 1755

The hummingbirds would return soon, tiny warriors marking the true beginning of summer in their frantic, efficient manner, and I smiled every time I saw them. For now I had to be satisfied with the robins, poking their little beaks into the dirt, retrieving what goodness they could find.

How simple for them, I thought, hoisting my second bucket of water. They pulled their food from the earth and drank their fill from the dew, and they had no chores at all. Early summer—nipk to the Mi’kmaq, when Nipniku’s brought the summer moon—meant the morning mud beneath our clogs would be cold, the stinging flies relentless. At the end of the day we would fall back into bed, exhausted and itchy.

Ah, but the little birds did not have what I had either, I mused. They could not come inside and warm their feathers by a welcoming fire when the rain raged or the wind banged the shutters of our house. They could not keep their tiny feet warm in fine woolen socks or wooden clogs like mine. They could not even enjoy the notion of how fortunate we were to live in this wonderful place with a loving family and so many friends.

I heard Maman singing, then Giselle joined in with her high, happy voice. My little sister was fourteen, but she often seemed younger than that to me. Setting a bucket on the threshold, I opened the door and walked inside, then poured the water into the large pot hanging over the stove. No one had been tending the fire, and I glanced at the others, but they seemed not to sense

my annoyance. I thought about mentioning their laziness, but their laughter dissuaded me. There was no sense in dampening their good mood. I knelt and coaxed a flame from the pulsing orange logs.

“Oh! Thank you, Amélie,” Maman said. “I don’t know where my head is this morning.”

“I do!” Giselle said.

Maman shook her head, but she was smiling. “You are a little tease.”

Shame washed through me, and I turned so they wouldn’t see my embarrassment. How could I have forgotten? “You were distracted,” I said. “Thinking about Claire and Guillaume.”

“Aren’t you?” Giselle asked. “The wedding will be wonderful! Then Claire will have her own home and her own children, and I will be an aunt! Oh, if only we didn’t have to wait until September! But I suppose it is all right. After the harvest we can enjoy it even more. What about you, Amélie? You are seventeen already. When will you choose a husband?”

I abhorred that question, and they loved to ask it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry. I simply had not met anyone with whom I could imagine spending the rest of my life. When I thought about the hours in a day, then those in a night, I knew my husband would have to be more than just strong and hard-working. He would have to be someone with whom I could talk about

anything, and no one in our village had yet reached my standards.

“Hush, Giselle. Don’t ask me that.”

Maman pursed her lips. “You know, Pierre Melanson—”

“I will not talk about this right now.”

“But, Amélie!” Giselle wailed. “There must be someone—”

“Stop! I said I won’t talk about it.” I yanked the door open. “I suppose I’ll get the milk too, since everyone but me seems too busy to do anything today.”

The sweet, ripe smells of the barn welcomed me inside, and I breathed in deeply, feeling instantly soothed.

“Good morning, Amélie,” Papa and André said, glancing up from their work.

The men in my family have never pressured me to find a husband. Marriage was important, I knew, but they seemed to understand that nagging would do no good.

“Good morning. Maman will have breakfast ready soon.”

“Merci, mon ange,” Papa said, scraping his rake across the stall floor.

“He told them they need their canoes back for fishing,” André said.

I realized I had accidentally interrupted their conversation, and I perked up, listening for clues to the topic. Anything would be more interesting than discussing marriage.

“And said they are losing cattle and oxen to the predators in the woods.”

Papa nodded sombrely. “This is true. Now that the Mi’kmaq have moved away and no longer hunt—”

“They moved away?” I cried. Surely Mali wouldn’t have gone without speaking to me or saying goodbye!

“Not far, but far enough. Don’t worry. Mali will be fine. Go on,” he said to André. “What else? The petition? What did he hear about that?” He gestured with his chin. “And work while you talk.”

That reminded me I had a job to do as well. I dragged a stool to the cow and leaned my shoulder against her warm, bristled side, letting her know I was there. My fingers closed around her and tugged in a familiar rhythm.

At the other end of the barn André began filling the wheelbarrow, clouding the air with dust. “Governor Lawrence would allow no one to read the petition, Papa. Instead he ordered everyone assembled—all one hundred men—to swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown, promising to take up arms against the King of France.”

Papa and I both stopped what we were doing, incredulous.

“Take up arms?” Papa puffed out a breath.

“But we cannot side with the English in any kind of war,” I reasoned. “They can’t make us do that, can they?”

What would the Mi’kmaq do if the Acadians were forced to side with the British? Would they have to fight against us? It hurt to imagine it.

“Keep working, Amélie.” Papa nodded toward the cow. “She’ll get impatient.” He turned back to André. “Tell me, what happened when the men heard the order?”

André could only shrug. “Of course everyone said no. They said such an oath would rob us of our religion and everything else we believe in. So Governor Lawrence arrested them all and sent them to a prison near Halifax!”

Papa groaned. “This Lawrence. I’ve heard terrible things about him, threatening people with his sword, frightening them for fun. A tyrant! Does your friend know what they plan next?”

“No. He ran when he thought the soldiers had discovered him there.” He sighed. “There is more to the story, I am afraid.”

The oldest of my three brothers was an intense man. Even as a child he had been particular and precise in everything he did. His expression was often difficult to interpret, since he deliberately

hid his feelings. This morning he was surprisingly easy to read.

“Governor Lawrence took away the priests,” he said, his voice so choked with fury that I feared he might break down. “He then made the church into his command post—”

“What?” I blurted.

“And he himself has moved into the priest’s house. Tents have been picketed all around the area for the soldiers. The English flag now flies over our church, Papa, and they are tossing out sacred

items as if they are nothing more than a nuisance.” He flung his shovel aside. “To make matters even worse, more soldiers have come.”

I couldn’t speak. What did this mean? What could have prompted the British to behave so? The act of seizing our church was an insult to all of us. We were not a warring people; if they

declared war on us, what would we do?

By the time I had been born in 1738, the British and the French had battled over this land many times, but my people had not been part of the fight. We had always called our home l’Acadie, but when the British had finally defeated the French for good, they named it Nova Scotia. It had never mattered to me which country believed they were in charge, because we Acadians lived independently of them all. I was not a Nova Scotian; I was an Acadian. Politics had never touched my life before now.

I set the full bucket outside the barn, then gazed across the land toward our church. The shapes of men moved among the straight white rows of tents where they slept. Certainly I had seen them before, but they had not seemed so menacing until today.

Promises to Keep
Genevieve Graham
Simon & Schuster

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Wilful Desire, like all good romances, is a story about choices. Choosing between what your heart wants and what it needs. Choosing between career and family obligations. Choosing what it means to have a happily ever after or a happy for now.

Will Walsh, faced with the choice of staying in Heart’s Ease Newfoundland, and marrying his childhood sweetheart, or a role with the elite Maritime Tactical Operations Group (MTOG), chose his career and the MTOG is a demanding partner. Wilful Desire begins in the middle of one of Will’s missions. Author Victoria Barbour captures all the intensity of it, pulling readers right into the dank hold of a fishing boat in the Caribbean before shuttling them back to the colder, brisk shores of Eastern Newfoundland.

Mae Mercer stayed in Newfoundland because she’d been forced to make a choice between Will’s future and her ailing father’s present. From that limited array of options, Mae manages to carve out a career that, years later, gives her more choices that many women could dare dream. Still in Heart’s Ease, she is a digital entrepreneur, running a Huff-Po-like website and trying to decide where life should take her next. That decision becomes all the more difficult when Will returns home after a five-year absence to rest, after a particularly trying mission, and they both discover the spark between them—primarily physical as the story begins—is still there.

The tangled web of physical desire and emotional need are deftly woven to move the story forward. Despite Will’s earnest attempts to do the right thing and win Mae over, he struggles to learn that it is not his place to make the right choices for her. The moment when Mae truly understands that she is happiest when she’s fully in command of her life brings Will’s well-intentioned plans for their future to a screeching halt.

For of non-readers of romance still trapped in the myth that the genre is not feminist literature, this might come as a surprise. This black moment will have readers turning pages to learn if these two can, in fact, have a future together on terms they can both live with. It is this juggling of priorities—the modern needs and expectations of women bashing up against the traditional roles of both sexes—that creates the bulk of the tension in Barbour’s tightly written contemporary romance.

Heart’s Ease, Barbour’s fictional Newfoundland coastal town, is in some ways the main character in the book. The interweaving of locals such as the indomitable Great Aunt Ida and newcomers make up the backbone of the Heart’s Ease series, of which this is the fifth book. The author’s love of her native Newfoundland is obvious and infectious and quickly draws the reader in.

It was not just the Newfoundland and Labradorian aspects of the book I enjoyed—I thoroughly enjoyed the Canadian references sprinkled throughout the story, be they French-Canadian swear words coming from Will Walsh’s superior or the details of Will’s crisp white RCN uniform. These are not plentiful in contemporary romances (and even more rare in historical ones) and as a reader of romance, I don’t think I appreciated how much I missed them until they were presented to me.

Wilful Desire, for the romance reader, has all the elements you’d expect from a contemporary romance—a wonderful setting, a fantastic supporting cast and a dynamic hero and heroine. Barbour’s writing is strong, bringing the reader right into the story. The naval aspects of this book were well captured. As a Navy brat myself, the language felt real and familiar. Romance novels—like murder mysteries and even some literary fiction—has an element of hyperrealism to it, but that is balanced with a familiarity, as an Atlantic Canadian, that I found welcome.

Wilful Desire is a satisfying read. If you’re looking for something a little different, a little less wrapped up in the gauze of Americana, this is as refreshing as an evening walk on your favourite local beach. Recommended.

Wilful Desire
Victoria Barbour
Flanker Press

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Declan Lynch is a sixteen-year-old boy who has never quite fit in. He’s always felt like he was born in the wrong century. He’s had more imaginary friends–voices in his head–than real ones. As he grows up, these voices transition into his own voice. One day the voice in his head becomes that of a girl, who searched long and hard to find him, using all of her energy to build a bridge of connection to reach him. A girl with a centuries-old voice, someone with whom he finally feels a connection.

Declan begins to have visions of this girl, named Rebecca. He ends up falling for her, though he’s never met her and isn’t sure she actually exists. She shows him visions of places he’s never been and people he’s never met. He sets out on a quest to find them, in hopes of finding her. He winds up in his ancestral home of County Sligo, Ireland, staying with his Uncle Seamus.

Thin Place, written in verse and intended for 12-15-year-old readers, is a blend of fantasy and contemporary realism, drawing on Celtic myths and lore. Author Lesley Choyce explains in a “Dear Reader” letter that the idea came to him while visiting Ireland, in a place called Knocknarea (where Declan visits), known as a “thin place,” a special location where some of the Irish say there is only a thin space between the spirit world and the physical world.

While Declan has always believed he is the one lost in a world where he doesn’t belong, looking for a guide and needing help, Rebecca shows him he is the one who needs to do the helping. She is beyond lonely and needs to connect with someone more than ever. It’s a compelling and suspenseful story, as both Declan and the reader have to wait to find out what happens, to find out who Rebecca is and what she needs help with.

The spacing and placement of words on the page allows the reader room to envision what’s happening and join this fictional world. The style is simple and really captures Declan’s sixteen-year-old voice.

This is a very grown-up young adult book with some deep concepts. One of Declan’s only friends, another loner at school, makes a couple of jokes about Declan’s mental health and at times it feels like this may be the direction the story is headed. But readers embracing elements of fantasy, linking Ireland’s ancient lore, history, myth and contemporary life, will enjoy a magical journey and endure a truly tragic love story.

Thin Places
Lesley Choyce
Dundurn Press

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Blank bookcover with clipping path

In her second collection of short stories, For All of the Men (and Some of the Women) I’ve Known, Danila Botha explores the intense depths and many meanings of love, relationships and couplings. In this powerful collection, we come to see the plenty sides of the heart: the good, the bad and the downright terrible.

Botha divides the collection into the main stages of any relationship’s formation and breakdown. She does not hold back from the messiness and rawness that comes with all of the resulting emotions, leaving you feeling like you have made a relatable companion within these 18 heart-grabbing stories. We meet every kind of lover, cheater, romantic and loser, and the kinds of people who fall for them. Essentially anyone who is human.

“Sometimes you miss the spontaneity of your former life,” is one line that showcases how Botha captures what so many people feel in relationships but are unsure of how to articulate. Some part of how you feel will pop out at you as you ponder your own loves and losses. The stories inside the collection vary. So many of the ways people act in love are included.

This stunning collection will absolutely affect you, and perhaps help you move on from some of the losses you have suffered, realizing with certainty that you are not alone. You are sure to see yourself or someone who reminds you of someone else as you let the characters pierce your own humanness.

Each of these stories are real and honest, open and gut-wrenching, and Botha makes them jump out from the page into your mind. The characters are unforgettable. This book will stay with you for a long time, as you ponder your own understanding of love long after you have shut the last page.

For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I’ve Known
by Danila Botha
Tightrope Books

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mom readingFor Mother’s Day this year, rather than tell you what books we think your mom should read, we went to some literary experts – a.k.a. librarians – to see what their moms like to read.

We weren’t quite prepared for the intensity of love expressed in some of their answers, from people who miss their departed moms and others who still get to share books and their learnings with their moms many years later. Here is what we heard.

Simon Lloyd, University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian, UPEI

“My dear Mum, Rosemary (Hill) Lloyd, was a great reader, and she and my Dad ensured that my sister and I grew up surrounded by books. Her tastes heavily favoured British writers: she and Dad emigrated from England to Nova Scotia in 1970, and she retained a warm and unpretentious fondness for certain things English – especially a properly-made cup of tea – for the rest of her life.

Anne of Green Gables“That said, my recollections of Mum do include at least one Atlantic Canadian literary thread. She remarked to me, not long after I moved to PEI in 1999, that she had never imagined, when reading Anne of Green Gables as a young girl in England, that she would one day be visiting her son on the magical island Montgomery so lovingly described. In the years that followed, Mum also developed some interest in Anne’s creator, LM Montgomery, as I shared with her some of the fascinating things I’d learned through having the good fortune to work with the wonderful community of scholars and admirers that has grown up around the LM Montgomery Institute at UPEI.

Montgomery the Gift of WingsAs chance would have it, Mum and I both read Mary Rubio’s imposing biography of Montgomery, The Gift of Wings, and had some enjoyable conversations around that. Though Mum was warm and sociable, with a host of good friends, she had an instinctive and deep-rooted sympathy for rebels and others who didn’t quite fit, so I think she was very interested to learn about Montgomery’s complexities and struggles.”

 

Lise Brin, Scholarly Communications Librarian, Angus L. Macdonald Library, StFX

“When I was in primary school my mother went back to school to get her B. Ed. She had gone to Normal School in Truro many years earlier, but decided in her 40s that she wanted a university degree. While pursuing these studies she took some French literature classes where they read La Sagouine by Antonine Maillet. I can’t say for sure, but I think this must have been something of a shock to her. As an Acadienne from Cape-Breton who had married a French teacher and (eventually) relocated to Manitoba, my mother had La Sagouinelearned to speak a “standard” French and suppress her Acadian accent. And now here she was in a university setting, studying a novel written in that familiar and comfortable speech of her roots.

“Once the shock wore off, this was quite a treat for her. Around the same time, she took the whole family to a theatrical rendition of La Sagouine, starring the incomparable Viola Léger, which I found (being seven or eight years old at the time) dreadfully boring and largely unintelligible. Now, of course, I have a far better appreciation for the book and for the pride she felt in encountering this piece of writing that at once acknowledged the existence of her language and upbringing, and legitimized it to us, her children, as poetic and worthy of literary praise.”

 

Amanda Tiller-Hackett, Humanities Collection Development Librarian, QueenContemporary Newfoundland Short Fiction Elizabeth II Library, MUN

“My mother, Vivian, is an avid reader … mostly of Danielle Steele and other similar authors. Recently, I’ve tried to get her into some of our local authors like Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey. She started with a collection of Newfoundland short fiction (I gave it to her for Christmas), and she liked it! But I think her preference is still romance fiction like Danielle Steele.”

 

Toes in My NoseTyler Griffin, Young Adult/Adult Services Librarian, Fredericton Public Library

“I have strong memories of my mother, Lucille, gifting and reading Toes In My Nose by Sheree Fitch with me. I have been a lifelong fan of Sheree ever since! I’m very thankful that my mother turned me into an inspired reader at a very young age through Sheree’s books.”

 

Crimes that Shocked NewfoundlandLorraine Jackson, Library Assistant, Cataloguing & Metadata, Queen Elizabeth II Library, MUN

“My mom, Olive Smith, always liked reading Jack Fitzgerald.  Her favourites were true crime and other nonfiction works. She always marvelled at the weirdness of the world citing the maxim, ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’”

 

Richard Ellis, Librarian Emeritus, MUN

Peyton Place“My memory of my mother Marion Ellis’ reading is of her sitting on a small stool, in front of a heating grate, reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee.  This was an end-of-the-day routine, often with my father grumbling something about night owls as he preceded her to bed. I do not recall discussing books with her, although on one occasion, perhaps at the time of the publication of Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, she commented that the previous cause célèbre was Forever Amber.”