A novel as wise as it is tender, a meditation on the miracle of friendship and the heartbreak of change, Followed by the Lark inhabits the life of Henry David Thoreau.Composed in small scenes, Followed by the Lark is a novel of meditations—on loss, on change, on the danger and healing that come from communion with the natural world.Henry David Thoreau's connection to nature was tied to his feelings of grief; before he was twenty-seven years old and went to live at Walden Pond, two of those closest to him had died—his older brother, John, and his friend Charles Wheeler. Nature provided solace for these losses, but the world was changing around him. The forests were being destroyed by the logging industry. Wildlife was increasingly slaughtered for profit and sport. The railroad clanged through his quiet hometown. And the catastrophes of the American Civil War were beginning to stir just as his own life was coming to an end. Haunting in its...

A lonely boy in a prairie town befriends a tramp in 1947 and then witnesses a shocking murder. Based on a true story. Canwood, Saskatchewan, 1947. Leonard Flint, a lonely boy in a small farming town befriends the local tramp, a man known as Rabbit Foot Bill. Bill doesn't talk much, but he allows Leonard to accompany him as he sets rabbit snares and to visit his small, secluded dwelling. Being with Bill is everything to young Leonard—an escape from school, bullies and a hard father. So his shock is absolute when he witnesses Bill commit a sudden violent act and loses him to prison. Fifteen years on, as a newly graduated doctor of psychiatry, Leonard arrives at the Weyburn Mental Hospital, both excited and intimidated by the massive institution known for its experimental LSD trials. To Leonard's great surprise, at the Weyburn he is reunited with Bill and soon becomes fixated on discovering what happened on that fateful day in 1947....

Helen Humphreys'younger brother was gone before she could come to terms with the fact that he had terminal cancer. Diagnosed with stage 4B pancreatic cancer at the age of forty-five, he died four months later, leaving behind a grieving family. Martin was an extraordinary pianist who debuted at the Royal Festival Hall in London at the age of twenty, later becoming a piano teacher and senior examiner at the Royal Conservatory of Music. The two siblings, though often living far apart, were bonded on many levels. Now Humphreys has written a deeply felt, haunting memoir both about and for her brother. Speaking directly to him, she lays bare their secrets, their disagreements, their early childhood together, their intense though unspoken love for each other. A memoir of grief, an honest self-examination in the face of profound pain, this poetic, candid and intimate book is an offering not only to the memory of Martin but to all those who are living through the death of family and...

In the vein of H is for Hawk and the work of Mark Kurlansky, The Ghost Orchard takes a fascinating look at the secret history of an iconic food. Delving deep into the history of the apple in North America, Humphreys touches on the role of Native peoples in early North America, the question of agricultural diversity and her own grappling with the terminal illness of her oldest friend.In the nineteenth century, there were more than seventeen thousand varieties of apples in the United States and Canada. Now there are fewer than one hundred varieties grown commercially; only fifteen varieties accounted for over 90 per cent of production in 1999. The apple was brought to North America from England in the seventeenth century, and Humphreys discovered in her research that it was cultivated by Native peoples throughout Canada and the US, resulting in so-called Indian orchards that thrived for hundreds of years. Indeed, the history of the apple here can be viewed as the history...

Inspired by the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, Afterimage is a provocative, passionate, yet delicate Victorian novel. When the young Irish maid Annie Phelan arrives at the country home of Isobelle and Eldon Dashell, she is swept into a world of artistic ambitions and hidden passions. But she also discovers a marriage that has grown distant and two people who see her as a blank slate upon which to project their own desires and failed dreams. Jealousy, longing and sensuality intertwine in this mesmerizing novel of aesthetic obsession and unfulfilled dreams.

A groundbreaking, genre-bending new work from one of Canada's most respected writers.In its long history, the River Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river.And so opens one of the most breathtaking and original works being published this season. The Frozen Thames contains forty vignettes based on events that actually took place each time the river froze between 1142 and 1895. Like a photograph captures a moment, etching it forever on the consciousness, so does Humphreys' achingly beautiful prose. She deftly draws us into these intimate moments, transporting us through time so that we believe ourselves observers of the events portrayed. Whether it's Queen Matilda trying to escape her besieged castle in a snowstorm, or lovers meeting on the frozen river in the plague years; whether it's a simple farmer persuading his oxen the ice is safe, or Queen Bess discovering the rare privacy afforded by the ice-covered Thames,...

What is an ordinary life worth?A seasoned writer stumbles across an obituary and imagination is sparked. The brief words of memoriam describe a woman who was both extraordinary—eccentric, revered in her field, a renowned expert—but also utterly ordinary. How does a writer, intrigued by all that isn't said, create a story? Capture an unknowable woman and all the secret passions, choices and compromises that make up a life?In Machine Without Horses, Helen Humphreys explores the real life and the imagined internal life of the famous and famously private salmon-fly dresser, Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. Humphreys, both present in the story and its architect, reveals with her inimitable style the complicated emotional landscape that can exist under even the most constant surface.

When Charles Sainte-Beuve, an ambitious French journalist, meets Victor Hugo, a young writer on the verge of fame, he finds himself in a world of great passions, a world where words can become swords. But, to Charles' surprise, he is more attracted to Victor's long-suffering wife, Adèle. When the two lovers create a scandal in Paris, Victor exacts his price for betrayal. Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, and sweeping from France to the Channel Islands, to Halifax and back, The Reinvention of Love draws a rich portrait of the old city. Towering over all is the enormous talent of Victor Hugo, who is rapidly becoming the voice of France to the world.Coventry opens on the fateful evening of November 14, 1940, when from her post as a fire-watcher on the roof of Coventry Cathedral, Harriet watches the waves of German bombers approach. As the city is consumed by firestorms, Harriet flees alongside a young fire-watcher named Jeremy, in search of safety and...

When Charles Sainte-Beuve, an ambitious French journalist, meets Victor Hugo, a young writer on the vergeof fame, he finds himself in a world of great passions, a world where words can become swords. But, to his surprise, he is more attracted to Victor’s long-suffering wife, Adèle. When the two lovers create a scandale in Paris, Victor exacts his price for betrayal.Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, and sweeping from France to the Channel Islands, to Halifax and back, The Reinvention of Love draws a rich portrait of the old city, where duels are fought in its parks and cholera-ridden bodies float in the Seine. Along its narrow, crime-filled streets, noble families and artists—Frédéric Chopin, Georges Sand,Alexandre Dumas—mix with ordinary citizens, who remainrestless with ideas of revolution. Towering over all is the enormous talent of Victor Hugo, who is rapidly becoming the voice of France to the world.Review"'In order to ventriloquize a long-forgotten, peculiar Frenchman, Humphreys has added to her trademark exquisite prose a stylish wryness. Witty, sad and gorgeous in equal measure, this story of a man like no other probes love like a wound' (Emma Donoghue, author of Room) 'Humphreys' pacing and story-telling are well-honed... an engaging novel told with wit and imagination.' (Nathan Brooker, FT)" Review"'In order to ventriloquize a long-forgotten, peculiar Frenchman, Humphreys has added to her trademark exquisite prose a stylish wryness. Witty, sad and gorgeous in equal measure, this story of a man like no other probes love like a wound' (Emma Donoghue, author of Room) 'Humphreys' pacing and story-telling are well-honed... an engaging novel told with wit and imagination.' (Nathan Brooker, FT)"