A Rhinestone Button

By Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Hmmm... The previous two novels by Gail Anderson-Dargatz have both been among my favourites - I do not think this one will be.

Job Sunstrum lives a sad and small life in the small farming town of Godsfinger, Alberta, where he grew up. He has always been a bit of an outsider. Job suffers from a rare disorder, synesthesia, which leads him to perceive sounds as colours and shapes. As a young man he was very thin with blond, curly hair. He loved baking and cooking, and did not fit in with the farmboys around town. His father was very domineering and his brother a bully. When his father dies, and his brother leaves to train as a pastor, Job takes over the farm. His community remains his animals and the church women with whom he shares his baking on Sundays. Lonely beyond belief, and overwhelmed by religious guilt, Job turns to God and hopes that someday he will find a nice Christian woman to marry, and settle down to the farming life, as his father did before him.

Then one year, his older brother, Jacob, an unemployed Baptist preacher, and his wife return to live on the farm, pushing Job out of his home and into the hired hand’s cabin. Slowly Job’s life starts to fall apart, causing him to lose touch with his mystical side, falling prey to guilt and anxiety. His neighbour Will, the closest thing he has to a friend, is exposed to the town as gay. Consumed with guilt Job allows himself to be caught up in the Pentecostal drive of a preacher named Jack Divine, hoping that clinging to his beliefs and proving his faith will make everything all right.

However, it is not in church that Ed finds ultimately finds what he is searching for. It is Ed, Will’s ex-lover, who helps Job understand that being a good man is about more than who you have sex with - and divorced hippie waitress Liv, who doesn’t believe in God, who ultimately leads Job to a new level of faith. However, to find out what Job learns at the end, the reader has to grind through endless church services. Something that made me want to give up half way through.

Kate's Story

By Billy Hopkins

Kate's Story is based on the life of Billy Hopkins' mother, Kate. It is the first of several autobiographical novels about the author's life.

In this first novel we follow Kate as she tries to rise above the slums and the workhouse to build a better life for herself and her family. The story begins on her 11th birthday, celebrated on the same day as Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and ends when she finds out she is pregnant with Billy.

A wondeful story about love, loss, persistance and determination. I enjoyed every page!