Canadian fiction

Chase and Haven is Oxford Mills resident Michael Blouin's first novel, published last fall – exactly a year after the publication of his poetry collection I'm not going to lie to you (Pedlar Press 2007). One can sense the seasoned poet lurking behind the lines of this careful, measured work of fiction.

The Milk Chicken Bomb is a young man's debut novel, and it is oddly touching for all its deliberate eccentricity. Its plot is virtually irrelevant; its audience undefined. The narrator is an unnamed ten-year-old living by his wits in a very small Prairie town, where he and his best friend try to sort out the mysterious activities of Russian immigrant workers and to eke out a living selling lemonade in winter.