Pictures

 Two recent pictures of myself, one with birthday flowers from my niece, the other with my new novel,
Grace and the Secret Vault (Ottawa, Baico, 2017, ISBN 978-1-77216-092-5, $20)

Grace and the Secret Vault (Ottawa, Baico, 2017, ISBN 978-1-772-1-092-5, $20, info@baico.ca) is a novel set in 1919, a time of social turmoil in Canada as a result of the "Great War".  The novel is presented from the point of view of a thirteen year old girl living with her mother and siblings in an idyllic B.C. coastal village, Gibson's Landing, while her father is working on the Vancouver docks and going on speaking tours sponsored by the labour movement, talking about the need to build a  fairer, freer post war Canada. Grace, the central character, thinks she would prefer a father who wasn't such an activist. But when a General Strike breaks out in Winnipeg, and he is caught up in it, she finds a way to help him and her family.

Readers have praised the novel for bringing to life a key event in Canadian history and introducing the impetuous, outspoken Grace.  The novel involved extensive historical research into the girlhood of the real life Grace Woodsworth MacInnis, who, in the 1960s and 1970s, was a strong advocate on "women's" issues in the House of Commons.