Blaze Island
By Catherine Bush (Goose Lane Editions, 2020)
You can actually feel and smell all of Newfoundland in Catherine Bush’s nail-biter novel Blaze Island. Though the isle in her book is fictional, it’s wholly inspired by the partridge berries, roasting eider and rotting kelp of The Rock. Grab a scratchy woollen sweater and immerse yourself in the savoury suggestion of bubbling fish broth, salt pork and warm biscuits because this book is a 365-page ad for “why you want to visit Newfoundland as soon as you can.”
When a jaded and weary climate scientist assumes a new identity and transplants his precocious daughter, Miranda, to Blaze Island, emotions ignite. A Category 5 hurricane collides with the island, and the aftermath leaves a far-reaching and unexpected path of familial destruction. Miranda’s brooding father, long-obsessed with dying icebergs and solar radiation management, comes to a
