Staff Picks
At FriesenPress, we celebrate each and every book we help our authors publish. Here are some of our team’s recent favourites – happy reading!
The Hunt on the Tundra
by
Lorri Rudland
Newly graduated from university, Dana Fraser is looking for adventure. A city girl with a fear of horses, Dana faces challenges both within her heart and courtesy of mother nature. The Hunt on the Tundra follows Dana in the late summer of 1974 as she strives to prove to herself that she can push the limits of what she knows and forge through the unknown that the BC tundra brings: a night alone in the wilderness, quicksand-like muskeg, bears and wolves, alcohol abuse, lies and even murder. In camp, she encounters relationships unlike any she’s seen in the city – from her unpredictable but attractive boss, Jimmy, to the calm indigenous couple who share their journey of healing. On top of battling the unknown in nature that surrounds her, she battles her father’s voice in her head that tells her she’s just not good enough. Will the voice of her alcoholic father fade, or will she leave the tundra with more scars than she had when she arrived?
The Rose of Ravenna
by
Veronica Guido
A forbidden love for the ages. A betrayal that echoes throughout history. Those who bore witness are ready to tell their story. Ravenna, Italy, 1275. Beautiful Francesca da Polenta starts every morning with a sweet nectarine from the grove outside the castle she grew up in. Raised by her father, Guido, Lord of Ravenna, her mother, Sofia, and the lush flora of the castle grounds who have come to care for her as one of their own, Francesca’s life seems an idyllic dream. However, conflict looms as the Guelph-Ghibelline war bleeds the land dry. In this game of competing powers, marriage is a strategic move, and Francesca is but a pawn. In an effort to solidify a powerful alliance, Guido marries her off to one of the four troubled sons of the despotic Rimini magistrate, Malatesta da Verucchio. Francesca is initially dismayed, but soon after she meets sensitive, handsome, green-eyed Paolo, she finds her heart is no longer her own. Once Francesca arrives in Rimini, however, things take a turn for the worse. Obsession, jealousy, and lust wreak havoc on the Malatesta household, and Francesca is soon caught between fate and her own desires as she is swept up in the dark undercurrents of power and greed. Ever hidden in plain sight are the narrators of Francesca’s story—the botanical cohort who have interests and motivations all their own. In the tradition of Dante Alighieri, Veronica Guido’s fictionalized account of these historical figures gives their story a fresh perspective, shedding new light on a familiar tale of tragedy and woe.
Tokyo Reverie
by
Lynda Grace Philippsen
After the end of a successful career, but one that has failed to fulfill her lifetime longing to live and work as an artist, a succession of random and serendipitous events prompts Lynda Grace Philippsen to head for Japan. There she begins the formal study of ikebana at Sogetsu Kaikan (Headquarters), in Tokyo. Ikebana, the centuries-old, sophisticated and highly-nuanced sculptural art of arranging flowers, presents her with numerous challenges. Communication barriers, cultural blinkers, unfamiliar pedagogy, and confounding social codes are, at times, as daunting as the curriculum’s demanding and enigmatic nature. Like a bird on her shoulder, Lynda takes the reader along the kado (the way of flowers), in a way that is both eloquent and relatable. A fascinating and immersive experience, not only does her story, which is told with insight and candour, contain moments of profundity, but it is also laugh-out-loud-funny at times. And while she captures the energizing experience and ambience of Tokyo in vivid detail, she does not sugar-coat her struggles. Her voice remains refreshing, raw and real. When COVID-19 interrupts her studies, forces a return to Canada and leaves her mourning the Tokyo life she must let go, Lynda discovers that the kado holds enlightening twists and turns of its own. Remarkable surprises beyond her imagination, leading to self-actualization, transformation and a new understanding of home.
I Love You Everywhere
by
Kirsten Crowder
This is a book about love—love you can carry with you everywhere, even when your loved ones aren’t there… I Love You Everywhere is a poem for children struggling with separation anxiety. Whimsical imagery and clever rhymes paint a vivid picture of how to overcome feelings of fear, sadness, and anger when a parent is away. Ideal for readers under the age of seven, this book emphasizes the importance of love in every circumstance. Read this book at bedtime or anytime your child needs a reminder that you care about them when you’re together and when you’re apart.
The Bowling Tour
Sparky & Boo's Badass Nordic Adventure by
Boo King
The Bowling Tour is a personal travel memoir that takes place over two weeks from November 20, 2024 to December 4, 2024. It follows the journey of a grandmother (her first time leaving North America at 73) and her granddaughter (a seasoned world traveller at 24) from Vancouver, to Stockholm, Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, Helsinki, Tallinn and back to Vancouver. It is a time of firsts. Full of adventure, from walking tours around Helsinki to ABBA The Museum visit in Stockholm, chasing the Northern Lights north of the Arctic Circle, playing with huskies, feeding reindeer, exploring a rock church and climbing a tall hill to watch the sunset at 3 in the afternoon, hunting for the perfect cinnamon bun and Swedish meatball, accidentally attending a medieval church to listen to an invisible pipe organist, visiting Christmas markets and city streets adorned with twinkling lights and giant reindeer and moose, sleeping in hostels and Airbnbs, reading at bedtime with many many saunas to end the day. And in every city, from Vancouver to Tallinn, we bowled. Deep conversations, silly talk, and so much laughter, wonder and joy.
Nanny Earned Her Jiggly Wings
A Grandmother’s Tale by
Rhonda Kay Comeau
“Nanny, why is your hair grey?” “Well, there’s a story . . .” As Nanny begins reading a story to her grandson, he interrupts with lots of questions about her body, such as why her hairs are grey and why she has two chins. These questions force Nanny to reflect on her personal journey through life and all the ways her body has changed over the years. Answering his questions in a light-hearted, positive, and sometimes humorous way, Nanny shows her grandson that every body has its own unique story. Through a poetic conversation between grandmother and grandson, Rhonda Kay Comeau illustrates the importance of body positivity and the messaging we pass along to children in our responses to their natural curiosity.
Weaving the World
A Tapestry of Eclectic Verse by
Rupert Raj
Weaving the World is a collection of over one hundred eclectic verses on a variety of themes, people, animals, plants and nature. Themes throughout the sixteen chapters range from family, marriage & friendship to community connections, from race, ethnicity & nationality to sexual & gender diversity, from cross-cultural arts to diverse natural wonders, from philosophy & psychology to science & spirituality. Several poems are odes/tributes to race rebels, transgender activists and transformative spiritual teachers. A number of verses comprise protest poetry—advocating for equity and justice for Black, Indigenous and people of colour, for queer, trans and two-spirit people, and for enslaved farmed animals. Certain poems dance the dialectic between existential despair and the joy of life. The final flourish offers a set of life affirmations—heartfelt "encouragements" to fill the holes in our souls and help save our sanity in these dystopian times.
Butcher's Block
by
J.D. Langlois
“Blessed” with a near photographic memory, Arlo Becker has been called a lot of things over the course of a long and successful career, not all of them fit to print. The heaviest mantle, however, has always been “Butcher,” a decades-old moniker that still echoes clearly with the horrors of a Middle Eastern war zone that he’d barely managed to survive—echoes that (for someone like him) could never truly fade. Leveraging his experience as a war correspondent, he would soon become a driven investigative journalist and producer, with a reputation for hard-hitting stories, exposing corruption and criminality amidst the shadowy underground of the nation’s streets and halls of power alike. But when his professional integrity and stubbornness come face to face with the Catholic Church during an investigation into the horrors of the Residential School System, he soon finds himself disillusioned, unemployed, and wholly unaware that his biggest and most dangerous challenge yet was about to fall into his lap. It seems that the fifteen-year-old son of his good friend Cathy has gone missing in Estonia after flying there to visit his estranged father—a man with a somewhat shady backstory and a sinister past. With little to go on besides a mother’s concern and a very bad feeling, Arlo agrees to find him and bring him safely back home, growing more fiercely determined with every life-threatening twist and turn that follows. With his future prospects already in jeopardy after a disturbing medical prognosis, he’s got very little to lose, after all. But maybe … just maybe … he’s got one more story left to tell.