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by Lauren B. Davis

Overview

The downtown core of Toronto is being consumed by elysium, a drug that allows its users to slip through the permeable edges of this world into the next before consuming them utterly. Peddled by the icy Srebrenka, few have managed to escape the drug and its dealer. But Maggie has.

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," and woven through with northern folk tales, The Grimoire of Kensington Market is the story of Maggie, proprietor of the Grimoire bookstore, the cosmic nexus of all the world's tales. Years after beating her addiction, Maggie is dismayed by the reappearance of Srebrenka in her life. Although she resists temptation, she quickly learns that her brother, Kyle, has been ensnared by Srebrenka's drug-laced beguiling.

Driven by guilt and love, Maggie sets off on a quest to rescue Kyle from the Silver World, where robbers stalk the woods, where tavern keepers weave clouds to hide mountains and where caribou race along the northern lights. There, she must discover what hidden strengths still lie within her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781928088820
Publisher:	Buckrider Books
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Sold by:	PUBLISHDRIVE KFT
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Lauren B. Davis is the author of Against a Darkening Sky; The Empty Room, named one of the Best Books of the Year by the National Post, the Winnipeg Free Press, Amazon and the Coast; and Our Daily Bread, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Globe & Mail and the Boston Globe. Her other books include the bestselling and critically acclaimed novels The Radiant City, a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and The Stubborn Season, one of the Top Fifteen Bestselling First Novels by Amazon and Books in Canada, as well as two short story collections, An Unrehearsed Desire and Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives.

Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award and the ReLit Award, and she is the recipientof two Mid-Career Writer Sustaining grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Lauren was born in Montreal and now lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her Best Beloved, Ron, and Bailey, the extremely spoiled rescue pup.

What People are Saying About This

John C. Foster

"Davis confidently paints a magical world rich in detail where human trials unfold against a fairy-tale tapestry. Weaving a fresh legend from a mosaic of ancient stories, she creates a bold new world where wit equals witchery and kindness is as valued as courage."

Editorial Reviews

"The Grimoire of Kensington Market is a powerful fantasia for adult daydreamers and bibliophiles."

Canadian Notes & Queries

"Davis does a fine job balancing these fraught moments of tension with lighter, magical scenes, such as her various luxurious sleepovers at mystical hotels and loving monologues with her canine sidekick Badger. [...] Beneath the fairytale lies a probing exploration of the current opioid crisis. Davis highlights how the collapse of social supports and the marginalization of addicts creates the perfect storm, hollowing out inner-city Toronto and leaving wounded orphans and ruined lives in its wake. When Maggie reaches her final destination to confront Srebrenka, the author spins the kinds of pyrotechnics appropriate to the climax of such a dramatic quest."

Toronto Star

"The Grimoire of Kensington Market is a stunning novel and a great experimentation with magical realism. Davis brings readers into this genre flawlessly, using a purely Canadian-flavoured magical realism that makes the novel unique. Readers won't be able to help but fall under its spell."

Hamilton Review of Books

"What follows is a fantastical adventure, dark and alluring. For the child in us, there are flying caribou and talking flowers, roads that roll up behind you and a palace of snow and ice [...] And this is not just a fairy tale with talking animals and happily ever afters, it's an exploration about the power of addiction – how it can alter your relationships and take over your life."

Consumed By Ink

This novel is richly layered. It’s not just a compelling story, but also a treatise on the idea of fighting back when one’s beliefs are challenged from every direction. The way one’s ideals might survive in an ever-changing world, as imperative now as it was thousands of years ago, is at the crux of this expertly rendered parable, and Davis’s colourful… prose keeps the tale flowing nicely towards provocative revelations about love, religion and the human instinct to survive.” —Globe & Mail


 “Set against an otherworldly, intimate backdrop, Davis’s tale vividly brings to life a near-mythic period of British history while speaking to universal human experience.” —Publishers Weekly


“Despite being so far removed from the contemporary worldview, the strength and sumptuousness of the setting is one of Against A Darkening Sky’s major strengths; the world is rich and well-realized... Though it wrestles with big question surrounding how we construct a view of reality, it’s the human connection and the deep intimacy there that gives this novel its magic.” —This Magazine


“Davis brings ancient Northumbria to life... The story’s theme—how to remain true to one’s beliefs when they pose a threat to belonging, and even survival—still resonates today.” —Quill & Quire
 

From the Publisher