Deirdre Kelly Signing Her New Book “Ballerina: Sex, Scandal, and Suffering Behind the Symbol of Perfection” on Saturday, October 20 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm

Visit the store on Saturday, October 20 and meet Toronto author Deirdre Kelly. She will be here from 1:00pm to 3:00pm signing copies of her new book Ballerina: Sex, Scandal, and Suffering Behind the Symbol of Perfection.

Deirdre is a journalist, author, and internationally recognized dance critic for Dance Magazine, the Dance Gazette, and The Globe and Mail (Toronto), where for sixteen years she was the paper’s dance critic on staff. She is the author of the best-selling memoir Paris Times Eight, and her articles on dance have also appeared in Elle, Vogue, Chatelaine, and Saturday Night.

From the jacket:
“Throughout her history, the ballerina has been perceived as the embodiment of beauty and perfection. She is the feminine ideal – unblemished and ethereal, inspiration incarnate. But the reality is another story.
As Kelly examines the lives of some of the world’s best ballerinas, she argues for a rethinking of the world’s most graceful dance form – a rethinking that would position the ballerina at its heart, where she belongs.”

Kathryn Dawn O’Brien Signs New Mystery “Murder Has A Memory” on Saturday, October 20 from 11:00am to 1:00pm

A new mystery is the perfect thing to curl up with as the fall days get cooler. Mystery author Kathryn Dawn O’Brien will be at Books on Beechwood signing copies of her new Roberta Law mystery Murder Has A Memory.

About the book:
“Hypnotherapist, Roberta Law gets a fast pass to the twilight zone when a ten-year-old client, suffering from acute insomnia, appears to spontaneously regress into a past life and witness her own murder. In order to help her client, Roberta must turn detective and try to solve a crime that may prove to be nothing more than a child’s overactive imagination at work. When the investigation leads her into the reclusive world of retired folk-rock icon, Lori Taylor, whose recent reunion with her long-lost daughter seems to be the source of something much more sinister-Roberta is soon to discover that murder has a memory…”

Come on by, meet the author, buy a book, and get it signed! See you then!

Elizabeth Radmore Signs Cushla: Almost Magic on Saturday, October 13 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm

Come by and meet local author Elizabeth Radmore who will be in the store on Saturday, October 13 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. She will be signing copies of her new book Cushla: Almost Magic. It is the third book in her Cushla series.

From the jacket:
“Kathleen McKenna couldn’t be happier. Just turned sixteen and her family have made a good life for themselves in Ottawa, anchored by friends, family, school and work. There is no sign of the gypsy girl she had once been in Northern Ireland only a few short years ago. But the arrival of a mysterious package could change all that.
From across the ocean, Nora, the old gypsy woman who had once befriended Kathleen, has bequeathed Kathleen her tarot cards and rune stones. “You will have two loves,” she had once read in those same cards, “The first will disappoint you, but the second…””

We look forward to seeing you all at this great event!

Susan Viets Signs her book “Picnic at the Iron Curtain” on Saturday, September 29 from 11:00am to 1:00pm

Come down to Books on Beechwood to meet local author Susan Viets. She will be here signing copies of her new book Picnic at the Iron Curtain: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution on Saturday, September 29 from 11:00am to 1:00pm. Susan was the first Western journalist to work in the Ukraine in 1991.

We look forward to seeing you all at this great event!

Violette Malan Signing “Shadowlands” on Thursday, September 20 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Come by the bookstore on the evening of Thursday, September 20th to meet Canadian fantasy author Violette Malan. She will be here from 5:00pm to 7:00pm signing copies of her new book Shadowlands – the second book in The Mirror Lands series. The first book in the series is called The Mirror Prince.

From the jacket:
“The war in the Lands of Faerie has ended. The rightful ruler now reigns as High Prince over all of the levels of the Lands. But there is still unrest, there are still those who resist the turning of the Cycle and the new regime. While there is conflict in the Lands, while the Healing of the People is incomplete, there is little help to be spared for the mere mortals who live in the Shadowlands – the place we know as Earth.
And so the High Prince dispatches Stormwolf – formerly a Hound but cured by his Prince’s magic and restored to the Rider he once was – to the human world to call home all the People who remain refugees there. But what Wolf finds in the Shadowlands is horrifying. The Hounds of the Wild Hunt who were trapped there during the war have learned how to prey upon the souls of humans, draining them of the magic that is the very lifeblood of the People.
To stop this reign of terror and perhaps bring his fellow Hounds the same Healing he has received, Wolf must join forces with a mortal psychic, Valory Martin – herself a distant descendent of the Riders. Together with several Riders who have remained on Earth, as well as the Outsiders – a group of mortals who have already been victimized by the Hunt – Wolf and Valory search desperately for a way to defeat the Hunt. Whether they can find the magic they will need is very much in question. But the price of failure will prove far too high for both the Shadowlands and the Lands…”

For more information on Violette or her book series, visit www.violettemalan.com
You can also visit www.dawbooks.com for more information about the books

Some of Violette’s previous books (the first book in The Mirror Lands series as well as books from her Dhulyn and Parno Adventures series) will also be available at the signing.

We look forward to seeing you all at this great event!

A Literary Event With Scribes and Scones

Join Books on Beechwood and three local mystery authors, Peggy Blair, Brenda Missen, and C. B. Forrest, who will be reading from their latest novels at The Scone Witch, 35 Beechwood Avenue, on Tuesday, September 18 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.
The $12 admission fee covers a scone dinner, dessert, and coffee or tea.

(Fees to be paid at the door at The Scone Witch.) Admission is limited to 25 people.

Please phone Books on Beechwood to reserve a seat, 613-742-5030.
Or e-mail staff@booksonbeechwood.ca.

Mike Martin Signing “The Walker On The Cape” on Saturday, September 22 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm

Come down to Books on Beechwood on Saturday, September 22 to meet local author Mike Martin. He will be here from 1:00pm to 3:00pm signing his new Newfoundland mystery novel “The Walker on the Cape.”

From the jacket:
“A man’s body is found on the Cape overlooking Grand Bank, Newfoundland. At first everyone thinks it’s a heart attack or stroke. But then it is discovered that he was poisoned. Who would do this and why? Finding that out falls to Sergeant Winston Windflower of the RCMP along with his trusted side-kick Eddie Tizzard. Along the way they discover that there are many more secrets hidden in this small community and powerful people who want to keep it that way.
Wildflower also discovers two more things; a love of living in a small Newfoundland community that is completely different from his up-bringing in a Northern Alberta reserve and maybe the love of his life. He gets a taste of Newfoundland food and hospitality as well as a sense of how crime and corruption can linger beneath the surface or hide in the thick blanket of fog that sometimes creeps in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean.”

About the author:
Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland and now lives and writes in Ottawa. He makes his annual pilgrimage to ‘The Rock’ every summer where he spends some time in St. John’s, Grand Bank and Gros Morne National Park.
He is a member of Ottawa Independent Writers, Capital Crime Writers and the Newfoundland Writers’ Guild.

For more information on Mike or his book visit www.walkeronthecape.com

We look forward to seeing you all here on September 22!

“Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune” by Roderick and Sharon Stewart

This is the most complete biography so far of the controversial Canadian doctor, Norman Bethune.

Written by the Toronto history professor, Roderick Stewart and his wife Sharon, it includes new research into Bethune’s medical adventures in Spain, as well as China. Born in l890 in Gravenhurst, son of a Presbyterian minister, Norman Bethune went to World War I, the tenth man in Toronto to enlist, was wounded at Ypres, but returned to join the British Navy. In civilian life, he practised medicine in Montreal. As a surgeon he was quick and ruthless, often antagonizing fellow doctors and shouting at the nurses.

In l935 he went to a congress in Russia and came home determined to get medicare into Canada. In l938 he went to Spain to fight the fascists. Later that year he left Vancouver for China, where Japan had invaded that country. It was in China he drove himself to death, operating where there was no one to watch him but the sick and wounded and no word from an outside world to tell him he was not fighting a lost cause. He got an infection and died, aged forty-nine, in November, l939, two months after his own world had gone to war.

People who knew Bethune in Canada found him so eager to change the world that he broke all rules of human behaviour. In China, on the other hand, they found him a hero, one of only five national heroes in that country.

It is a provocative story that Stewart has told in two earlier books on Bethune and should become the definitive basis for all serious discussion on Norman Bethune.

Review by Anne McDougall

“The Age of Desire” by Jennie Fields

The American writer, Jennie Fields, has written an intimate novel on the love life of one of America’s most famous women writers, Edith Wharton.

She says in her Introduction: “I hope that, as a novelist, the very private and proud Edith looks down on me with indulgence..” In fact, while Fields does base her story on Wharton’s diaries and letters, she is also very imaginative and frank in writing of the love Wharton never had in her marriage but sought outside it.

The period is turn of the century, the early l900s, and much of the story takes place in Paris salons where famous literati and artists – including particularly Henry James who is a close friend of Edith Wharton’s – gather to exchange ideas. Wharton’s book The House of Mirth has just gained huge popularity. Meanwhile, Wharton divides her time between Paris, where she longs to be, and her large country house in Lenox, Massachusetts where she lives a separate emotional life with her American husband. Also included in her life is a childhood governess, secretary and close friend, Anne Bahlmann. She has her own story of emotional fulfillment. Altogether we get a tender, up-close look at the two women, their lives of combined affluence – dozens of servants and comfort everywhere – combined with emotional starvation.

Jennie Fields has written three novels. She also spent twenty-five years in New York as an advertising creative director. This is a provocative but compelling book.

Review by Anne McDougall

“Above All Things” by Tanis Rideout

“Because it’s there” became the famous quote of the climber, George Mallory, whenever he talked of being the first man to conquer Mount Everest.

This book tells the real story behind his adventures as well as the very deep love story that came second only to the call of these adventures. Tanis Rideout has done impressive research to make “Above all Things” the excellent book it is.

Set in England, it tells how George Mallory, highly educated, part of the Bloomsbury Group, came to love climbing above all else. Expeditions in the early l920’s to conquer Mount Everest had failed. This book goes into detail as to how the l924 Expedition came to be formed. This all runs parallel to Mallory’s deep love for his wife, and their three small children. In fact, much of the book is written from Ruth’s point of view and we get a vivid picture of the agony of her waiting.

The author was born in Belgium but now lives in Toronto. She has been part of the environmental advocacy group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper to help promote environmental justice on the lake. “Above all Things” is her first novel.

Review by Anne McDougall