Take a trip to faraway eras and places with two richly imagined historical novels.
Date/Time: May 10 2017, 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Vancouver, VPL Central BranchCost: Free
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Alisa Smith's best-selling first book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (Vintage Canada, 2009), won the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, the Canadian Culinary Book Award and the American Cordon d’Or Award of Literary Merit. She has contributed to many publications including Canadian Geographic, Explore and the National Post, and she is the recipient of several National Magazine Awards. She is pursuing a designation as a forensic accountant. Smith lives in Vancouver, BC, where she is working on the sequel to Speakeasy, Doublespeak.
Speakeasy
A former undetected outlaw who ran with Bill Bagley’s notorious gang during the Depression, Lena Stillman is now an elite codebreaker in a position to know the nation’s strategic secrets. Good under pressure, good at keeping her mouth shut, Lena never had trouble keeping her double lives compartmentalized—at least not until Bill is sentenced to hang, and her old Clockwork Gang becomes newsworthy. Intricate and entertaining, Speakeasy is a riveting West Coast caper, but like enemy submarines patrolling offshore, deeper issues lurk below. With the violence of war encroaching on Canada’s shores, Lena must grapple with her past and use all of her skills, linguistic and otherwise.
ROBERTA RICH divides her time between Vancouver and Colima, Mexico. She is a former family law lawyer. Her first novel, the bestselling The Midwife of Venice, has been published to acclaim in thirteen territories, including the U.S., the UK, Germany, Spain and Brazil. Her second, The Harem Midwife, was a national bestseller.
A Trial in Venice
Five years after the end of The Harem Midwife, Hannah Levi is forced back to Venice. Her beloved adopted son Matteo has been kidnapped and is in danger once more. And this time, so is Hannah. A rollicking and evocative read, peopled with beguiling, unforgettable characters, this breathtaking novel is certain to shock and delight fans of the series and solidify Rich's reputation as one of Canada's most loved historical fiction authors.
A former journalist and documentary filmmaker, Mary Burns has published widely in literary magazines and is the author of seven books, including five novels, two story collections and a non-fiction book, The Private Eye: Observing Snow Geese, which was shortlisted for the Science in Society Book award. Her radio plays were broadcast on CBC and BBC Radio 3, and some were collected in the anthology Take Five, The Morningside Dramas, edited by Dave Carley. She has also written several stage plays. Her newest book, The Reason for Time, Allium Press of Chicago, is her first historical novel
The Reason for Time
On a hot, humid Monday afternoon in July 1919, Maeve Curragh watches as a blimp plunges from the sky and smashes into a downtown Chicago bank building. It is the first of ten extraordinary days in Chicago history that will forever change the course of her life. Racial tensions mount as soldiers return from the battlefields of Europe and the Great Migration brings new faces to the city, culminating in violent race riots. Each day the young Irish immigrant devours the news of a metropolis where cultural pressures are every bit as febrile as the weather. But her interest in the headlines wanes when she catches the eye of a charming streetcar conductor.
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