ECW Press

Excerpt: WITHOUT PREJUDICE by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , , , ,

Today, we have an excerpt from Without Prejudice, the memoir of Harvey Brownstone, Canada’s first openly gay judge. The book tracks his life from his tumultuous childhood, through to his distinguished judicial career. The memoir is also in the process of being adapted into a movie of the same name, and starring David Arquette.

The excerpt covers some of the author’s thoughts on life on the bench, what it means to be a judge, and some of his early observations and training.

The book is out now, published by ECW Press. Here’s the synopsis:

This searing and unforgettable memoir chronicles the turbulent trajectory of Canada’s first openly gay judge. Harvey Brownstone recounts the astonishing obstacles he confronted and surmounted with fearless resolve, including parental rejection, poverty, depression, homophobia, institutional inertia, and professional sabotage.

Harvey Brownstone’s story is a tumultuous, sometimes hilarious, and uplifting journey from bullied child to outcast after coming out to his parents, to trailblazing lawyer, to distinguished judge.

Brownstone colorfully details his momentous and inventive judicial career marked by his numerous innovations of the justice system, particularly revolutionizing Ontario’s child support enforcement program.

In retirement, he is no longer shackled by the restraints traditionally imposed on the judiciary, and thus Brownstone provides a frank, unfiltered, and refreshing glimpse into the inner workings of the justice system, boldly delineating the strengths and weaknesses of criminal and family courts, both of which he claims are sorely in need of comprehensive reform. His remarkable story, reinventing himself from high-profile judge to highly acclaimed talk show host, is a testament to the resilience and triumph of the human spirit.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE SLEUTH OF FERREN CITY by S. M. Beiko (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , ,

Next week, ECW Press will publish The Sleuth of Ferren City, the third novel in the Brindlewatch Quintet by S. M. Beiko. To mark the occasion, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share; something to tide existing series fans over until the book’s release, and also give new readers a taste of what they can expect from the novel/series. First, here’s the synopsis:

Monsters are real. Well, monstros are, anyway — an emerging group of citizens trying to find their place in Brindlewatch, ever since the Camillites made a splash in the small town of Quixx, and the Jettites climbed out of their subterranean city beneath Lake Mallion. The Far Cities are bristling with newcomers looking for a fresh start in this brand-new world, but is it as safe for them as they think?

Sable, a Camillite who still lives on Mount Quixx, isn’t so sure. She sees the world through the distorted lens of the novels she steals from Professor Bedouin’s observatory and is slow to trust the strangers in the world beyond the page. She is a side-character in her own story, and she wants to keep it that way.

But a desperate letter begging for help rewrites Sable as the protagonist sleuth of her favorite novels, and hot on the trail trying to find her vanished friend, Sable uncovers more than she bargained for in the bright lights of the big a famous author with the ability to make every monstro’s dream come true, a dastardly underworld targeting vulnerable monstros, and a sweet bookseller who may be at the heart of the mystery.

And on the airwaves, a broadcast like no other promises a bold new world for everyone. Will Sable find her voice and save those terrified of speaking up, before it’s too late?

Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE MANY NAMES OF ROBERT CREE by Robert Cree, w. Therese Greenwood (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , , ,

Today we are very happy to share an excerpt from The Many Names of Robert Cree: How a First Nations Chief Brought Ancient Wisdom to Big Business and Prosperity to His People, the new autobiography by Fort McMurray First Nation chief Robert Cree (w. Therese Greenwood). Recently published by ECW Press, here’s the synopsis:

A vital account of the life and many names of Robert Cree, and his plan for a peaceful, sincere, and just path to reconciliation in an angry and chaotic world.

His mother called him “Bobby Mountain.” Elders called him “Great Man.” His people called him “Chief.” Oil men called him “Mr. Cree.” But the government called him “Number 53.” Robert Cree was all of these while facing his people’s oppressors and freeing the ghosts of tortured spirits.

The Many Names of Robert Cree is his first-person account of survival in a brutally racist residential school system designed to erase traditional Indigenous culture, language, and knowledge. It is also the story of an epic life of struggle and healing, as Cree takes the wisdom of his ancestors and a message of reconciliation to the halls of government and to industry boardrooms.

In the storytelling tradition of his people, Cree recounts his early years in the bush, his captivity at a residential school, his struggles with addiction, his political awakening as one of Canada’s youngest First Nation Chiefs, and the rising Indigenous activism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He also recounts the oil industry’s arrival on his poverty-stricken reserve and the ensuing struggle to balance economic opportunity with environmental challenges.

Throughout, Cree’s leadership is rooted in his unshakable commitment to the sacred traditional teachings of his people. His beliefs give him the strength to focus on hope, dignity, and building a better future for his community. Now a respected Elder and spiritual leader, Cree champions forgiveness as a powerful force that can bring healing and transformation for all.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: SEVENTHBLADE by Tonia Laird (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , ,

Tomorrow, ECW Press is due to publish Seventhblade by Tonia Laird, “a fast-paced, anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy”. Pitched as perfect for fans of N. K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, I think it should appeal to a number of CR readers. To mark the publication, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share (Chapter 1). Here’s the synopsis:

After the murder of T’Rayles’s adopted son, the infamous warrior and daughter of the Indigenous Ibinnas returns to the colonized city of Seventhblade ready to tear the streets asunder in search of her son’s killer. T’Rayles must lean into the dangerous power of her inherited sword and ally herself with questionable forces, including the Broken Fangs, an alliance her mother founded, now fallen into greed and corruption, and the immortal Elraiche, a powerful and manipulative deity exiled from a faraway land. Navigating the power shifts in a colonized city on the edge and contending with a deadly new power emerging from within, T’Rayles risks everything to find the answers, and the justice, she so desperately desires.

Loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, and set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, Seventhbladeis a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright emerging Indigenous voice.

And now, on with the excerpt…

Continue reading →

Excerpt: WE OUGHTA KNOW by Andrea Warner (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , , , , , , ,

WarnerA-WeOughtaKnowCAHCOn October 15th, ECW Press is due to publish We Oughta Know by Andrea Warner. The book is an essay collection that examines “How Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah Ruled the ’90s and Changed Music”. To mark the book’s publication, the publisher has allowed CR to share the Introduction. Before we get to the excerpt, though, here is the synopsis:

A lively collection of essays that re-examines the extraordinary legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated ’90s music and changed the industry forever

Fully revised and updated, with a foreword by Vivek Shraya

In this of-the-moment essay collection, celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner explores the ways in which Céline Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah McLachlan became legit global superstars and revolutionized ’90s music. In an era when male-fronted musical acts were given magazine covers, Grammys and Junos, and serious critical consideration, these four women were reduced, mocked, and disparaged by the media and became pop culture jokes even as their recordings were demolishing sales records. The world is now reconsidering the treatment and reputations of key women in ’90s entertainment, and We Oughta Know is a crucial part of that conversation.

With empathy, humor, and reflections on her own teenaged perceptions of Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah, Warner offers us a new perspective on the music and legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated the ’90s airwaves and influenced an entire generation of current-day popstars with their voices, fashion, and advocacy.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: CLEVER GIRL by Hannah McGregor (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , , ,

McGregorH-CleverGirlCAHCNext month, ECW Press is due to publish the next book in their Pop Classics series, which is a range of “Short books that pack a big punch… intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.” (Looking at the range, I have a feeling I’m going to be reading a few of these.) Hannah McGregor‘s Clever Girl focuses on Jurassic Park — a movie that I saw in theatres when I was only 10yrs old, and a franchise that I’ve followed pretty much ever since. To celebrate the upcoming release, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with you all. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

A smart and incisive exploration of everyone’s favorite dinosaur movie and the female dinosaurs who embody what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free

The Jurassic Park series is one of the most famous and profitable movie franchises of all time — an entire generation of people has never known life without these CGI dinosaurs. The movie spectacle broke film and merchandising records, pioneered special effects, and made Jeff Goldblum into an unlikely sex symbol, and now it has also been re-envisioned as a classic of queer feminist storytelling.

In Clever Girl, Hannah McGregor argues that the female-only dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are stand-ins for monstrous women, engineered by men to be intelligent, violent, and adaptive, and whose chaos resists the systems designed to control them. As they run wild through their prison, a profit-driven theme park, they destroy the men and structures who mistakenly believed in their own colonialist and capitalist power, showing the audience what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free. The velociraptors were not just jump scares for children but also revelatory and predatory symbols of feminist rage. Clever girls, indeed.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: WE SPEAK THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN by Premee Mohamed (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , ,

MohamedP-2-WeSpeakThroughTheMountainThis week, ECW Press publishes the latest novel from Premee Mohamed! We Speak Through the Mountain returns to the post-apocalyptic society of the acclaimed The Annual Migration of Clouds. Check out the synopsis:

Traveling alone through the climate-crisis-ravaged wilds of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, 19-year-old Reid Graham battles the elements and her lifelong chronic illness to reach the utopia of Howse University. But life in one of the storied “domes” — the last remnants of pre-collapse society — isn’t what she expected. Reid tries to excel in her classes and make connections with other students, but still grapples with guilt over what happened just before she left her community. And as she learns more about life at Howse, she begins to realize she can’t stand idly by as the people of the dome purposely withhold needed resources from the rest of humanity. When the worst of news comes from back home, Reid must make a choice between herself, her family, and the broken new world.

In this powerful follow-up to her award-winning novella The Annual Migration of Clouds, Premee Mohamed is at the top of her game as she explores the conflicts and complexities of this post-apocalyptic society and asks whether humanity is doomed to forever recreate its worst mistakes.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: WITHERED by A.G.A. Wilmot (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , ,

WilmotAGA-WitheredHCTomorrow, ECW Press is due to publish the second novel from A.G.A. Wilmot (following 2018’s The Death Scene Artist): Withered — a “queer paranormal horror novel in the style of showrunner Mike Flannagan” (Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher, and so forth). To mark the release, the publisher has allowed CR to share the novel’s Prologue with our readers. First, check out the synopsis:

After the tragic death of their father and surviving a life-threatening eating disorder, 18-year-old Ellis moves with their mother to the small town of Black Stone, seeking a simpler life and some space to recover. But Black Stone feels off; it’s a disquieting place surrounded by towns with some of the highest death rates in the country. It doesn’t help that everyone says Ellis’s new house is haunted — everyone including Quinn, a local girl who has quickly captured Ellis’s attention. And Ellis has started to believe what people are saying: they see pulsing veins in their bedroom walls and specters in dark corners of the cellar. Together, Ellis and Quinn dig deep into Black Stone’s past and soon discover that their town, and Ellis’s house in particular, is the battleground in a decades-long spectral war, one that will claim their family — and the town — if it’s allowed to continue.

Withered is queer psychological horror, a compelling tale of heartache, loss, and revenge that tackles important issues of mental health in the way that only horror can: by delving deep into them, cracking them open, and exposing their gruesome entrails.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: GREY DOG by Elliott Gish (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , , , ,

GishE-GreyDogHCTomorrow, ECW Press are due to publish Grey Dog by Elliott Gish — a “subversive” literary horror debut that “disrupts the tropes of women’s historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage”, it sounds like this deserves quite a wide readership. To celebrate the release, the publisher has provided us with a short excerpt to share with our readers. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd — spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist — accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past — riddled with grief and shame — has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly phenomena: a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something old and beastly — which she calls Grey Dog — is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory loosens, and Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, behaving erratically and pushing her newfound friends away. In the end, she is left with one question: What is the real horror? The Grey Dog, the uncontainable power of female rage, or Ada herself?

Continue reading →

Excerpt: A TIDY ARMAGEDDON by BH Panhuyzen (ECW Press)

Civilian Reader Excerpt , , ,

PanhuyzenBH-ATidyArmageddonCABH Panhuyzen‘s debut novel, A Tidy Armageddon is due out next week. It has been described as a mix of “heart-felt journey of human resilience” and “action-filled suspense”. To mark the novel’s imminent publication, ECW Press has provided CR with an excerpt to run. First, of course, here’s the official synopsis:

They emerge from a war bunker to find the world utterly transformed: every product of human creation has been organized by an unknown hand into a vast grid of random nine-storey blocks, each comprised of a single item type: watering cans, lighthouses, fake Christmas trees, helicopters, spoons, and everything else human culture has every produced.

Led by Afghanistan war veterans Sergeant Elsie Sharpcot, a Cree woman who has struggled against the military’s rampant racism and misogyny, and Dorian Wakely, her PTSD-afflicted second-in-command, this section of misfit soldiers must negotiate the endless passageways that separates the blocks while they search for both survivors, and answers to the source of this catastrophe. And in the meantime, they must struggle – against the elements and each other – to survive.

Passing with fear and wonder through this museum of human achievement, provisioning themselves from its treasures, the group races to outrun the approaching winter.

Intrigued? Read on for a sample from A Tidy Armageddon, taken from Chapter 13…

Continue reading →