Book Embargo

This is a marvelous year. It is the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables, by LM Montgomery. It is a magical book, and there is an entire series. In 1985, Anne of Green Gables was a highly acclaimed made for television by the CBC. Directed by Kevin Sullivan it starred Megan Follows as Anne. Simply phenomenal.

She has her own, Wikipedia page. For those of you not familiar with Anne, here is the plot summary from the Wikipage:

Marilla Cuthbert and Matthew Cuthbert, middle-aged siblings who live together at Green Gables, a farm in Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, decide to adopt a boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia as a helper on their farm. Through a series of mishaps, what ends up under their roof is a precocious girl of eleven named Anne Shirley. Anne is bright and quick, eager to please but dissatisfied with her name, her pale countenance dotted with freckles, and with her long braids of red hair. Being a child of imagination, however, Anne takes much joy in life, and adapts quickly, thriving in the environment of Prince Edward Island.

There is an amazing discussion on the importance of Anne Shirley, which great extras in the comments, Here at Jezebel.com

Additionally, in honor of this magical year, there was a prequel written by Budge Wilson. Before Green Gables. More here at the official website.

A must-read for generations of book lovers…

Before Green Gables is the story of Anne Shirley’s life before her arrival at Green Gables—a heartwarming tale of a precocious child whose lively imagination and relentless spirit help her to overcome difficult circumstances and of a young girl’s ability to love, learn, and above all, dream.

Check out Anne if you havent, and then read Wilson’s new, Before Green Gables. Anne Shirley is a girl that everyone should know!

Tags: 100th anniversary, anne, anne shirley, before green gables, budge wilson, canada, cuthberts, green gables, lm montgomery, lucy maud montgomery, montgomery, PEI, prince edward island, wilson

A synopsis from LoveReading.co.uk

1867, Canada - As winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man’s cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson’s Bay Company men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime, or exploit it? One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a forgotten Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good. In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation and humour into a panoramic historical romance, an exhilarating thriller, a keen murder mystery and ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, one of the books of the year.

A Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly,

The frigid isolation of European immigrants living on the 19th-century Canadian frontier is the setting for British author Penney’s haunting debut. Seventeen-year-old Francis Ross disappears the same day his mother discovers the scalped body of his friend, fur trader Laurent Jammet, in a neighboring cabin. The murder brings newcomers to the small settlement, from inexperienced Hudson Bay Company representative Donald Moody to elderly eccentric Thomas Sturrock, who arrives searching for a mysterious archeological fragment once in Jammet’s possession. Other than Francis, no real suspects emerge until half-Indian trapper William Parker is caught searching the dead man’s house. Parker escapes and joins with Francis’s mother to track Francis north, a journey that produces a deep if unlikely bond between them. Only when the pair reaches a distant Scandinavian settlement do both characters and reader begin to understand Francis, who arrived there days before them. Penney’s absorbing, quietly convincing narrative illuminates the characters, each a kind of outcast, through whose complex viewpoints this dense, many-layered story is told. (July)

And lastly, from Powell’s Books, the comment is what got me.

Rarely has a suspense thriller trod the path that Stef Penney has taken. Even as one waits with bated breath to find the killer, one gets sucked into yet another aspect of the novel — the dynamics of human relationships against the bleak picture of cold isolation! The reader’s prerogative to judge and condemn is taken away as the story unfolds to reveal the vulnerabilities of the human heart. Moments of intense sadness are overlaid by the immediate concerns of survival. This is one of those books that leave you feeling the end has no business to arrive so soon.

Now, my opinions:

All that said, it was a good book. All of the points that each of those sites bring up is accurate, and they do not mention that there are a few moments where you have to stop and say, “wow, I did not think we were going THERE.” I was not as enthralled as others who have read it. I LIKE HAPPY CHARACTERS! 1867 Canada does not lend itself to happy characters. But it was still a good book, definitely worthy of the read and it comes out in paperback on May 4th 2008. Look for it in your local independent bookshop then!

Tags: 1867, canada, fiction, fur, fur trade, furs, hardcover, murder, novel, paperback, penney, scalping, stef penney, tenderness of wolves.

Fact #1. Harper Collins has a man named Carl who sends us a fax every Monday morning.
Fact #2. Recently there was a conference called the WI, the Winter Institute that many, including Carl, went to

Fact #3. Recommended most strongly by reps at the conference was Outlander by Gil Adamson.

From that review,

The Outlander should be read like the great adventure it is – hang on to your hat and don’t blink in case you miss something!

Here is the Canadian cover, the official US cover has not been released. Our advance cover has a running horse instead of a running woman, and I must say, though I love our ARC cover, I prefer the Canadian cover for the story line.

I was not overwhelmed for the first half to two-thirds of this novel. I liked small aspects but did not love it. I kept at it, and at about two-thirds, when we hear the story of what happened with Mary’s husband, it clicked. I had been reading it quite quickly before, and from then on I devoured it.

I am not going to steal the photo, but I want you to check out a Flickr page with photos from one of Adamson’s signings. Over here at Flickr.com.

Thanks to Carl and those at the WI for the recommendation, and I shall continue it. Pick it up in Mid-April and hold on for a great ride all the way to the LAST sentence.

Tags: adamson, canada, canadian author, fiction, gil adamson, harper, outlander, winter institute