What Time The Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley
“The greatest minds in the world are often cranky when they first awaken in the morning, and mine is no exception. If I am to ascend above the ordinary, I require solitude the way a balloon needs helium.”
Thus begins another day in the life of Flavia de Luce, the world's most famous young, cranky, ingenious, and spunky crime solver. In this, the tenth in the successful Flavia series penned by former Saskatchewan resident Alan Bradley, Flavia, and her pestilent younger cousin, investigate the murder of a former public hangman.
The deceased was fed a breakfast of poisonous mushrooms, which led to his untimely demise. The de Luce family cook emerges as the likely murdered. However, Flavia knows better, so she and her cousin Undine set out to uncover the real killer.
A former staff member at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, author Bradley took early retirement from the university in 1994, embarked on a career as a freelance writer, and then in 2009 rocketed to the top of the charts with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
What Time The Sexton's Spade Doth Rust came out in September of 2024 from DoubleDay Canada. Now 87 and still going strong, Bradley and his wife currently live on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea.
A few years back we did a podcast chat with Alan Bradley. It is episode 10, and can be found by visiting the www.thegreatcanadiannotebook.com site, go to the right, and find the episode (plus hundreds more) under Headlines.
Village Weavers by Myriam J.A. Chancey
“Momo tells Sisi that her village is a place so small and insignificant that it cannot be mapped. If it were, it would not even be a dot: it would be a speck, impossible to see with the naked eye. It is a place one finds by following waters and springs that erupt from the ground miraculously, teeming with unseen life.” ( Sisi, Port-au-Prince, 1941 )
It is the 1940's. In Haiti, Gertie and Sisi become fast childhood friends, despite being on opposite ends of the social and economic ladder. As young girls, they build their unlikely friendship – until a deathbed revelation ripples through their families and tears them apart.
Village Weavers takes us from 1941 to 2003, from Haiti to Paris to the USA, and confronts the silences around class, race, and nationality.
Myriam J.A. Chancey is the award-winning author of What Storm, What Thunder and is a Haitian-Canadian-American writer. She is the HBA Chair in the Humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, California, and a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Village Weavers first hit book store shelves in 2024 from Tin House, based in Portland, Oregon. Their website is: www.tinhouse.com .
We talked with the author for episode 264 of our Talking Books and Stuff's podcast, which can be found by clicking on www.thegreatcanadian notebook.com site, going right, and searching under the Headlines button.
I Think We've Been Here Before by Suzy Krause
“Having your heart broken is like finding out you have bedbugs – not in an emotional sense, but practically. Both broken hearts and bedbugs require extreme treatment. You can't just wash your sheets and think that's enough. Not only is it not enough, you've likely made the problem worse by carting your dirty laundry all over the place.”
Welcome to the world of the Jorgensen family. One of the family members has a husband who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. There's an elderly father who receives a visitor from the past. And a cosmic blast is set to end humanity within a matter of months. Will the upcoming Christmas holiday season on their Saskatchewan farm be their last?
Back in 2008 Suzy Krause started a blog about her life in Regina. One thing led to another and before you can say “Gosh Golly” Suzy Krause was working on a project about motherhood, writing about bands and concerts for various sites, and doing a weekly spot on a cable television show.
Then, in 2019 came her first novel: Valencia and Valentine, from Lake Union Publishing, and was soon followed by Sorry I missed You, also from Lake Union. This current title, I Think We've Been Here Before, was published by Radiant Press in Canada and Lake Union world wide.
Not only that, but some of Suzy Krause's works have been translated into Russian and Estonian.
You can track down the Regina writer at www.suzykrause.com
Remember, you can never have too many bookmarks.
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