Skip to content

Books make the best gifts

Reviews
books
New novelist Mark Cameron of Gibsons.

Goodnight Sunshine is a fictional tale with a ring of authenticity written by Gibsons author Mark Cameron. The main character, Oliver Bruce, is a man in mid-life crisis and the owner of the Sunshine Café on Vashon Island, Washington. He finds fragments of a letter in a dumpster, meets a cranky and eccentric engineer and sets out on a wandering Indiana Jones style quest to the jungles of Ecuador, leaving his wife and kids at Disney World.

He also meets an attractive widow whose physicist husband had invented an energy source that is putting the oil companies into a frenzy. While volunteering at a project in the cloud forest, Oliver is seduced by a friendly colleague, stalked by a mysterious stranger and must follow a set of clues around the Ecuadoran countryside to find the physicist’s secret.

While the plot seems improbable, the characters ring true and the rich life of Ecuador that Cameron describes undeniably comes from his own first-hand knowledge of the country as a traveller. 

This is Cameron’s first novel, self-published under his own company, Catch our Drift Productions. Unlike many self-published books, this one is refreshingly free of editing errors – enough to make any book reviewer sigh with relief. It’s available for $22 directly from the author’s website at www.markofwords.com or from Talewind Books in Sechelt.

*****

Many fans of the work of Jim Christy will remember the former Gibsons resident who writes so compellingly about his experiences in foreign lands and his fascination with the rogues of the world. Anvil Press has just released his latest, Rogues, Rascals, and Scalawags Too. Words like rogues, rascals, rapscallions, reprobates and rodomontades don’t completely describe these individuals. These are stories about con artists, adventurers, fabulists and the delusional – who all share an extreme passion for life. Some are of the modern era, some go way back, but their lust and spirit link them throughout the ages. This book, like Christy’s predecessor, Scalawags: Rogues, Roustabouts, Wags and Scamps, published in 2008, is devoted to the celebration of that passion.

Jim Christy is a writer, artist and tireless traveller. The author of more than 30 books, including poetry, short stories, novels, travel, and biography, his travels have taken him from the Yukon to the Amazon, Greenland to Cambodia. He has covered wars and exhibited his art internationally. Although he is fondly remembered on the Sunshine Coast for his jazzy book launches and his highly decorated art car, Christy now lives in Ontario.

*****

Local author Susan Girard sends you on a magical, mystical, ethereal journey in her debut spiritual fiction novel, In the Light of the Full Cold Moon, published by Balboa Press, a division of Hay House Publishing. As you meander through the temperate rainforest with the main character, Savannah, you will discover a whole new reality where healing love and energy rule the day. Girard asks you to learn how to live and contribute on a global scale in today’s society, as a participating member of the human race, finding your special uniqueness to give back along the way.

Rev. Sue refers to herself as a new thought metaphysician, interfaith minister, priestess, and empath. In the book you will meet ascended masters, sages, goddesses and spirits from the heavenly realm who will give you messages to sustain you and help you in your own soul search, earth walk and evolutionary pilgrimage.

Travel on this quest of self-discovery and experience Savannah’s walk through the 288 pages of this book. It’s available at Talewind Books in Sechelt or on Amazon. Find out more on her Facebook page, Full Cold Moon, and watch for the book’s launch in the new year.