Banished from France by Louis XIV, once-royal favourite Sylvienne d’Aubert must make the dangerous ocean crossing with a group of young women eager to secure husbands in the French colony of Quebec as Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King). Sylvienne, however, scarred by an abusive, arranged marriage in France, vows never to wed again. […]
The King of Montréal by Daniela Norris
It’s 1800 when Louis-Charles, only 15 years old, arrives in Montréal. Known to everyone as Charles, he has escaped France aboard the ill-fated packet ship Freedom. Rescued by Basque fishermen, Charles is taken to the port of Montréal and left there to fend for himself as he bears the heavy secret of his true identity… […]
The Rush by Beth Lewis
Canada, 1898, and the Gold Rush is on in the frozen wilderness of the Yukon. Fortunes are made as quickly as they’re lost, and Dawson City has become a lawless settlement. In the middle of this, three women are trying to survive on the edge of civilisation. Journalist Kate has travelled hundreds of miles after […]
Burke and the War of 1812 by Tom Williams
As the United States sets its sights on expansion, James Burke, part spy, part diplomat, is sent to gather crucial intelligence and navigate the treacherous political landscape. His journey takes him from the tribal homes of the Shawnee people to the heart of Washington in the run-up to open conflict along the Canada-US border. When […]
The War of 1812: unexpectedly relevant
When Tom Williams decided to send his soldier/spy James Burke to North America for his next book, he wondered how European readers would respond to a rather obscure war that took place across the Atlantic while Napoleon was capturing most people’s attention. But as he was writing Burke and the War of 1812, that conflict […]
The link between Scotland and the Inuit
Elisabeth Gifford writes about the link between Scottish whalers and the Inuit people living on the Arctic Atlantic coasts, which is a major theme in her latest book, A Woman Made of Snow. The Arctic Bar in Dundee is an unprepossessing pub with a modern frontage, but inside the dusty harpoon guns and photographs of […]
The Graveyard of Lake Ontario
Janet Kellough on the mysterious phenomena of Lake Ontario’s ‘Bermuda Triangle’. Right at the eastern end of Lake Ontario where North America’s Great Lakes spill into the St. Lawrence River lies an area that has been dubbed “The Graveyard of Lake Ontario” because of the extraordinary number of ships that have gone to the bottom […]
The County Ain’t Quaint
Janet Kellough on how local history and community inspired a career in performance storytelling. I live in a very peculiar little corner of the world, on an island that dangles from the north shore of Lake Ontario. Officially its name is Prince Edward County, but everybody calls it “The County”. Capital “T”. Capital “C”. As […]