Looking for some summer reads? Why not peruse the pages of recently released and award-winning books from some local authors.
Letters from Gerald, by Rob Butler:
Butler, a professional ornithologist, is a best-selling author, an award-winning scientist, and a public speaker. His bird research has produced three previous books, but Letters from Gerald is his first novel.
Published in April 2024 by FriesenPress, Letters from Gerald will appeal to readers of historical fiction set in England after World War Two, young women champions, birdwatchers and nature lovers, and women in science.
“Letters from Gerald is an exploration of morals, ethics, and social position of a young woman navigating a man’s world,” said a synopsis of the book. “Told through stories of intrigue, international crime, tragedy, human foibles and comedy, the reader is led into the inner world of natural history museums, the world of bird study in the 1940s, scientific paper writing, and bird conservation efforts that resonate today.”
Some readers have questioned if there will be a sequel to Letters from Gerald. One is in the works, but whether or not it goes to press will depend on the response to Letters from Gerald.
Where you will find it: FriesenPress online bookstore, Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Barnes and Noble
The Sacrified by Rudy Kerkhoven
Kerkhoven, a mathematics teacher at New Westminster Secondary, lives in Sapperton with his wife and two children. The Sacrified, his seventh book, imagines climate catastrophe through a local lens.
“Set in the Lower Mainland in the 22nd century, the story explores how cities, including what would be New Westminster, have privatized their governments into protectionist enclaves in order to insulate themselves from the impacts of climate change,” said a synopsis of the book. “When the book’s protagonist, Pri Gosal, is offered a chance to escape earth through passage on an interstellar generation ship, she first must journey through a climate refugee area between Vancouver and Seattle, referred to as The Jungle.”
Kerkhoven said he wrote the book imagining a highly compartmentalized version of Metro Vancouver.
“I wanted to ask, ‘What would privilege, migration, and law and order look like within the context of a besieged earth’? And what would that interplay look like when it came to those who were chosen to be ‘saved’?” he said in a news release.
Where you will find it: The Sacrified can be purchased at local Indigo and Chapters locations, as well as on The Sacrificed
Lena Gibson, The Wish and Switching Tracks: Out of the Trash
A longtime New Westminster teacher and resident, Gibson has authored several books that have been indie published in the last year. The most recent two recently won prestigious Indie Book Awards from IndieReader Discovery Awards and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Switching Tracks: Out of the Trash, won in the IndieReader’s Dystopian category. Released on Feb. 1, 2024, the book has been described as a “thrilling dystopian train-hopping adventure.”
“Life in SoCal in 2195 is controlled by a corporatocracy. Elsa scavenges twenty-first-century trash, living on the edge of starvation in this ruthless world through her grit and instincts,” said a synopsis. “When she unearths a metal tube containing maps to six Doomsday seed bunkers and a silver key, she dreams of renewable sources of food and a life based on more than subsistence, but GreenCorps will stop at nothing to acquire her find. Accused of theft and beaten half to death, she escapes with a handsome train hopper. They seek the long-lost bunkers, hoping to break the GreenCorps monopoly on food.”
Where you will find it: Switching Tracks: Out of the Trash is available at all major booksellers, including Black Rose Writing, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.
The Wish, released in August 2023, was recently named as one of the best indie books of 2024 by the Independent Book Publishing Professional Group (adding to other previous awards). In Gibson’s time-travelling book, Elizabeth has a chance to travel back five years and fix her past mistakes.
“Haunted by her choices, including marrying an abusive con man, thirty-five-year-old Elizabeth has been unable to speak for two years. She is further devastated when she learns an old boyfriend has died. Nothing in her life is right,” said a synopsis. “That night, Elizabeth wishes for a mulligan. When she wakes, to her surprise, it is no longer 2022, but 2017. Though thrilled to have a chance to fix mistakes, the past is not perfect. …”
Where to find it: The Wish is available at all major booksellers, including Black Rose Writing, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble
