Explore the Lore
Trepidation was stalking Travis Watson like a wild animal when he was writing Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia. Much like the eight-foot-tall suspected primate of Canadian folklore, his consternation loomed over him, giving him complicated feelings, as the subject of Bigfoot is one that heightens division. “There’s just an awful […]
Carol Scott’s idea for her book The Cryptids of Asia and Oceania had been simmering on the creative burner since high school. The Brampton-based writer started the first draft of her book in 2015. Its publication came to fruition in September 2022, allowing her passion for digging deeper into cryptozoological […]
There is an afterlife for Brennan Storr’s homage to his hometown Revelstoke, British Columbia. The Victoria resident’s book A Strange Little Place, which was originally published in August 2016 by Llewellyn Worldwide, went out of print in April 2022. Storr, one of the founding members of The Ghost Story Guys […]
The evolution of Laura Reagan throughout the three Creature X Mystery books is impressive. Reagan is the protagonist of J.J. Dupuis’ Creature X Mystery series and she’s gone from in search of her estranged father to full-blown buster of drug smugglers. Umboi Island is the third book of the Dupuis […]
Murder mysteries and their villains always have those “goddammit” moments when they realize they’ve been made. “Murder She Wrote,” “Columbo” and “Ellery Queen” all culminated into a “the jig is up” denouement and the villain always attempts to flee. I know I equated J.J. Dupuis’ first Creature X Mystery book […]
In an era where the only exciting hauntings are demon infestations concocted by shows permanently done in night vision, Time-Life Books’ Mysteries of the Unknown: Phantom Encounters grounds the study of the ghostly phenomenon. Released in 1988, the compilation covers the themes of doppelgangers, spirits of those going through traumatic […]
I wouldn’t be surprised if J.J. Dupuis grew up on a steady diet of Mystery Inc. investigations. Whether it was the hijinks of Hanna-Barbera past or Matthew Lillard past, the Toronto-based author definitely watched Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! It may appear I’m throwing a non sequitur out into the aether […]
Ghosts of Niagara-on-the-Lake (Second Edition) by Maria da Silva and Andrew Hind Dundurn Press, Canada, 2018 4.5/5 The only way some people can swallow the pill called history is by wrapping it up in the proverbial bacon, a la filet mignon, and serving it on a platter. My own mother-in-law […]
The Haunting of Vancouver Island: Supernatural Encounters with the Other Side by Shanon Sinn Touchwood Editions, Canada, 2017 4/5 Much like entering an allegedly haunted house, with little knowledge of the skulking revenants, Shanon Sinn’s book The Haunting of Vancouver Island has that je ne sais quoi that’s only apparent […]
The best part of the horror genre is its ability to seize the social anxieties of the day and to mortar and pestle them into a grotesque pill that does not go down easily. With an internal struggle against “illegals” crossing the Mexico-U.S. border and a president who seems mulish […]