Please send me all your positive energy as The Widow Tree gets shined, plucked, primped, and ready for the world.

Here is my attempt at a blurb:

Fall, 1953, three teenagers find a clutch of long-lost Roman coins while clearing vegetables from a government field. The decision to keep the coins instead of turning them over soon turns disastrous when one of them disappears. The remaining two are left to question everything they believed to be true, while the mother of the missing boy slowly unravels. This is a story of fatal plans and silent betrayals in a tightly knit village just north of Belgrade. Here the postwar air is simultaneously flushed with hope, weighted with suspicion, and rife with orphaned words no one wants to claim.

Here’s the first one I wrote. I researched the origins of the foods mentioned, and thought it would be a unique take on a counting board book. I still think it’s cute.

What’s in the Pot?

One brave bunya nut leaps into the pot.
Two jalapeno chillies shout it’s hot, hot, hot!
Three timid artichokes hide behind the spoon.
Four old rapini stalks compose a silver tune.
Five carefree fiddleheads sway to the gentle beat.
Six clever snakebeans lurk beneath their feet.
Seven hairy melons, do they need a trim?
Eight portly damsons hang so plump and prim.
Nine black-eyes peas shoot out a glassy stare.
Ten pretty ginger roots fan the steamy air.
Eleven noble cabbage heads proclaim, “What is this fuss?
Forget about those soup bowls, you may drink a tea with us.”

“This is a darkly atmospheric work examining the lasting power of love, loyalty, and family secrets. Readers who enjoy Annie Proulx and Kent Haruf will find similar themes in Lundrigan’s work. A pitch-perfect novel with a writing style that shifts as easily as the characters’ moods, Glass Boys is a triumph.” — Stephanie Turza

As you can see from my blurb below, the setting is quite different from my previous novels. My wing muscles are aching just a bit. The seed for this story came from my father-in-law who was born in former Yugoslavia, and moved to Canada in 1974. He is always eager to share his history, and I’m always eager to listen. More on that later…

For now, here’s a teaser:

Fall, 1953, three teenagers find a clutch of long-lost Roman coins while clearing vegetables from a government field. The decision to keep the coins instead of turning them over soon turns disastrous when one of them disappears. The remaining two are left to question everything they believed to be true, while the mother of the missing boy slowly unravels. This is a story of fatal plans and silent betrayals in a tightly knit village just north of Belgrade. Here the postwar air is simultaneously flushed with hope, weighted with suspicion, and rife with orphaned words no one wants to claim.

And here’s the link from Q&Q:

http://www.quillandquire.com/google/article.cfm?article_id=12018

“Glass Boys is intense, dark and haunting.”
Tracy Sherlock
Vancouver Sun

Lundrigan is “…a great Newfoundland novelist everyone in the country should know.”
Chad Pelley
National Post

Glass Boys is “…rendered with haunting honesty and detail… Driven by deft plotting and vivid imagery… Lundrigan describes her characters with such thoroughness that the reader senses even the most the unforgivable could be understood with enough context.”
Meghan Potkins
Winnipeg Free Press

So, here I am in my dream, adult-sized, but looking exactly like I’m heading to kindergarten. When I’m finally ready, I’m impossibly late for the event. It’s dark outside, and I have no idea of the directions. The computer won’t start, and there’s no map book in the house. I begin to panic as I can’t find a copy of the book, and then I realize I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to read. Of course I haven’t practiced reading, and when I finally do locate the book, the contents are in a language I don’t understand. This is followed by that feet-in-sludge sensation where I can only move in slow motion as the clock ticks. And ticks. And ticks. Until it’s too late, and the event is over, and I slump down in a chair, completely deflated. And then, thankfully, I wake up.

I’ve had this dream a handful of times, and at first I thought it was bad nerves. But I’ve realized it’s not just anxiety over an event or a reading. In part, it has to do with saying good-bye. I wrote this book during a difficult time, a loss of several family members including my father and my brother. Flicking through the pages, I can start to read a scene, and then remember the exact events occurring at that time. Though the plot and characters reflect nothing of my own life, I know that some of my grief is tangled in around the words. So many moments are hidden away in there, and even though no one can actually read them, it leaves me feeling curiously vulnerable.

The official release is in a few days. And still, I haven’t quite figured out how to do it. How to let go. How to lift my hand off the cover, and say, I can’t keep you for myself. You’re no longer mine.

I’ve been invited to attend the media event for Eden Mills Literary Festival on August 23rd. If you’re in the area, please come join me as I read from Glass Boys.
For more information, click here.

Glass Boys was selected as a featured book on Canadian Bookshelf.
More info here.

And the novel is on the “Best Books of August” list on Amazon.ca.
See the entire list here.

Finally, the fantastic Salty Ink has predicted Glass Boys will be the breakout Atlantic Canadian Book of the Year.
Read Salty Ink’s Prediction Here!

Somehow I ended up in the car with that man, and I remember thinking how stupid I was. To do that. Get into a shiny car with a strange man. I plotted ways to escape and ways to attack. But no moves were necessary. He was simply someone from The Evening Telegram, and didn’t want to wait for me to walk all the way home.

So, I got my paper route. I was no thicker than a whisker, and those papers weighed nearly as much as I did. I was a decent paper girl, marched all the way up each driveway, opened unlocked doors, tossed papers into the hallways, or placed them neatly inside the screen door. Sometimes there would be a smell of cabbage and salt beef in the air. Cats would run out between my legs. People were nice, too. Often they’d chat, ask about my family, or invite me in to dry off or warm up for a spell. I might leave with a cookie, or if I needed to, the washroom was available.

I remember delivering papers after a big winter storm. Some people had not yet shovelled their driveways, so I was traipsing through snow up to my hips. Dragging the paper bag behind me. I came upon a group of kids drilling tunnels through the heaps of snow made by the plough, and I stopped, joined in a snowball fight. Ran about, sweating up a storm until the sun began to set and the sky turned purplish grey. When everyone else went in for supper, I picked up my paper bag and slogged on with damp clothes, wet feet, wet hands. Mittens lost in one of the tunnels. No proper hat — I considered myself too hip to wear one.

Quickly, I began to shiver. By the time I reached the end of my route, my body was stiff, and I could not open my hands. I tapped on the doors with my boot so that people could take their papers directly from the bag. Some people wanted me to come in, but I was too stubborn to admit I was freezing. It was a long walk out and back, ice particles in the wind felt like a straw broom against my skin. I fell more than once, and my hands stuck in the snow. I can clearly recall the sense of them tightening into bird’s claws.

When I arrived home, I couldn’t open the door or press the door bell. I bumped against it, and bumped against it, but no one answered. I slumped on the back step and waited. And finally my oldest brother hauled open the door, and yanked me into the warmth. He was mad at my stupidity, told me not to cry as the sting set into my cheeks and bare hands. He hoisted me onto the counter near the sink. Pulled off my boots. Then he filled a large bowl with cold water and took my hands gently in his and held them in the water. It burned. I cried some more, and he swiped a cup towel over my face. Gradually he added warm water to the bowl, and he moved my fingers around underneath the water. Slowly the throbbing eased, and my white and red hands were sore, but feeling better. After that he made me something to eat – two cored apples cooked in a bread pan, centres stuffed with brown sugar and cinnamon and butter.

Such a tiny memory of my late brother, but I’m happy to have it back. Like a little gift.

Reading February reminds me of what good fiction really does. A novel can take you far, far away. But sometimes, with a little sweep, it carries you home.

“Nicole Lundrigan has been teetering on the cusp of ‘next big thing’ status since her debut, Unraveling Arva, was tagged as a top-10 pick for 2004 in The Globe and Mail… There is a very good chance that her latest effort, Glass Boys, will finally catapult Lundrigan into the spotlight… The momentum is so strong that a reader is compelled to reread passages to revel in the prose. Her writing is so enthralling, and the story so full of suspense and interest, that there is a temptation to allow the pages to fly by when they really should be savoured…”

“Comparisons to other Newfoundland authors are inevitable, and while Lundrigan’s writing draws on themes of hardship, difficult family relationships, and abuse that will be familiar to readers of Michael Winter and Lisa Moore, her voice is strong enough to stand on its own. Perhaps, with her latest effort, she will finally earn the right to have up-and-comers compared to her.”

If you want to take a look at the entire review, you’ll find it here:

Quill & Quire Review