Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Seeking the Center will be published by Cuidono Press

Seeking the Center is my second novel, but the first one to be finished. I started thinking about it all the way back in 2008 or so. It tells the story of Agnes Demers, a young Métis woman growing up in Saskatchewan in the 1980s and '90s. Here's what it's about:

Agnes Demers grew up playing hockey, skating with the neighborhood kids on the frozen ponds of her hometown, St. Cyp, through the long, cold Saskatchewan winters. For Agnes, hockey is the measure of all things - the ultimate test of passion and power, spirit and skill. But now hockey has betrayed her, left her watching from the bleachers - all because she's had the miserable luck to be born female.

Agnes moves to Wapahaska to work at the Indian Jewel Box with her friend Jo. She intends to ignore the town's minor-league hockey team, the Prairie Wolves, not to mention her childhood teammate Owen MacKenzie, the Wolves' star center. In fact, she intends to ignore the whole smug, self-congratulatory scene, but it isn't long before she becomes re-entangled with the game she loves, with Owen, and with the team's new enforcer, Claude Doucette, an older player who shares her Native heritage and aspires to live by its warrior creed.

Locked in a three-way tilt at the convergence of history and desire, Agnes must seek the center: the balance to stay on her skates, the opening to make a play, and the vision to reclaim her game.

No release date yet, but you'll be the first to know!