Bitchery reader Amy asks for romances set in Canada – the Definitive List.
A friend and I were discussing the usual settings for romance novels and we suddenly wondered if there are any romance novels set in Canada (most particularly in Nova Scotia). I would love to see a book about the Canadian Mounty’s Secret Baby. Does anyone know of anything like that?
Personally, I want to know when will there be erotica about the ever-mounting Mounty? And when he arrives at That Crucial Moment, can there be an “Oh, CANADA!” joke? Because, well, it’s awesome?
Is this a challenge, Sarah?!
*cracking knuckles*
Kate Bridges regularly sets her HH titles in Canada – although not Nova Scotia (to my knowledge). She even has a series featuring Mountie heroes. You can find a printable booklist on her web site:
http://www.katebridges.com/
How about a M/M romance set in Canada? On Fire by Drew Zachary. Set in modern Victoria, it begins on Canada Day, when a twink hits on a mountain of a man (his description) dressed in a fireman’s uniform. There’s even a sequel, On Fire II (very original title there), but I haven’t checked it out.
Not the best M/M romance I’ve read, but the only contemporary set in Canada that I can think of.
There must be more out there.
If this is the definitive list it has to include the classic “Mrs. Mike” originally published (I think) in the 1940s. A very sweet story of a young Mountie’s bride as he takes her into the wilderness of western Canada.
No, to be truly definitive, the list has to include the Anne of Green Gables series! She and Gilbert get their happy ending and work through problems while living in Canada the whole while. PEI is STILL on my list of places to visit before I die!
Re: PEI – me too! Especially because I’m fascinated by the fact that they have an island-wide recycling and composting program that has cut their garbage haul to a fraction of its former size. So amazed and envious.
“Hi! I’m a tourist from that big country south of you. Can I check out your rubbish? Thanks!”
Emma Donoghue’s Landing is an epistolary lesbian romance set in Canada and Ireland. I reviewed it a few months ago.
By the way, it’s MountIE, not MountY. But in Canada we usually refer to them as “RCMP officers”, among other less polite names.
The only RCMP romance I can think of off the top of my head is a real one, which isn’t likely what you’re looking for.
Come on there is a market for gay romance and what’s more studly than two horsemen?
The secret baby. Duh, I know someone who did it IRL. Not a happy ever after, especially when Mrs. Mountie found out.
Just guys that get to wear red serge, a big hat, and kinky boots a couple of times a year and eat a lot of donuts.
Here’s another recommendation for “Mrs. Mike”. I read that so many times when I was a kid that I wore my copy out. What a great love story!
PEI is teh awesome! I go there almost every summer and it’s still as magical and romantic as is was 100 years ago.
Two of my all-time favourite romances are set in Canada, c. early 20th century – LM Montgomery’s “The Blue Castle” (northern Ontario) and Robert MacNeil’s “Burden of Desire” (Halifax, Nova Scotia). The first one is a great story about a dying woman who decides to let loose and run off with the town bad boy and the second one is a twisted, delicious love triangle about a man who discovers a woman’s racy journal in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion.
Janet Oke set a number of Christian romances in Canada, I believe.
Something about this talk of gay mounties reminds me of Monty Python: “Roger is a mounted policeman, with a difference…”
OK, Not Canada, not exactly a romance, but a good N-F book I read years ago, was set in Alaska. “Tisha” (for “teacher”) was set in the 1920s she goes to Alaska to teach an has to adjust to life there, as well as confront prejudice.
The Anne of Green Gables books reminded me of this book—read them at the same point in my life.
And, of course, there’s always Dudly Dooright.
Oh yes, here’s another vote for The Blue Castle. I read it a couple years back following a recommendation on another romance site. Lovely “ugly duckling” story, great hero, unusual setting.
Katheen Nance “Day of Fire”. It’s set in the future where Canada is quarantined off from the crazy US (as I’m sure they’d love to be now). The chick is a Mountie the guy a virologist I think tracking down a plague. There’s a half-wolf pet and an orgy in the mountains that they bust up and nearly get it on while possibly getting infected. What more could you want?
Somewhere there is a whole list of them on a Canadian romance writer’s page. I just can’t find it yet. I think it’s Here but it’s currently not up.
Love, love, love the Blue Castle. I re-read it at least once a year. I had to buy a new copy a few years back, because the original one fell apart. So glad to know that other people out there love it, too!
I read a Temptation at least 10 years ago that was set in Canada. There was some magic involved. A necklace? Maybe a fairy? It was part of a trilogy, I think. Don’t remember for sure- I’ll have to research.
Maybe we could band together and write one- Mount me Mountie.
No mounties, but there is a contemporary book set in either Vancouver or Toronto about a woman who works as an at-home phone sex operator. She has a young son named Graham. The hero is a writer who is trying to do a story on phone sex operators and he calls her. They eventually meet up in the real world (first at a hotel and then at daycare) and finally get together. Bad synopsis, sorry.
If anyone could tell me the name of this book, I’d appreciate it. It’s bugging me that I can’t remember.
Look to Arsenal Pulp Press for erotica with Canadian settings—though it might be only gay and lesbian content, I don’t recall.
http://www.arsenalpulp.com/home.php
If you click on “categories”, you can select erotica.
Delurking for a moment…
There was a Harlequin Superromance series in the mid-90’s (4 Strong Men, I think) two of which had Canadian heroes, one a Canadian army officer, the other a Mountie.
The army one – Peacekeeper – does have a secret baby!
The Mountie one – Every Move You Make – has a heroine with a stalker. RCMP to the rescue!
Harlequin writer Sandra Field (AKA: Jan MacLean and Jocelyn Haley) set most of her books in Canada.
Mount Me Mountie!
We need more M/M Romance with Mounties.
Little Nell was a fag hag!
Judith Duncan – aren’t her books set in Canada?
Ha! The cover for that “4 Strong Men” series featuring the mountie was part of Longmire’s romance novel web page of mockery:
http://www.worldoflongmire.com/features/romance_novels/
I remember a Harlequin Super Romance, where the hero was in the logging industry, and the heroine was a writer—some plot details about the hero’s sister, daughters, and evil ex-husband. Set in the Canadian Pacific NorthWest.
A few of Lyndsay Sands’ Argeneau Vampires books are set in Canada (not Nova Scotia; I think it’s Toronto.)
Oh, and Christina – I read that one, too. I’d be interested to see if anyone can remember the title.
The Bride Ship by Deborah Hale is a fabulous historical set in Nova Scotia.
I’m from Ottawa and I was so inspired by a recent trip to Nova Scotia that I’m writing a book set there (but I’m no published author, just writing for fun).
Her One And Only by Alice Vadal is set mostly in 1887 British Columbia, with a side trip to San Francisco. Interestingly, although the hero is a large blonde English lord, the cover features a pounty dark-haired underwear model in jeans and a bandana. No idea who he is supposed to be. Vadal also wrote a prequel, set in the same BC community, called The Man For Her, but I haven’t seen a copy anywhere.
With reference to L.M.Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, there was a bit of a fuss here in Canada a few years ago, when it was discovered that Colleen McCullogh’s The Ladies of Missalonghi was a total ripoff of it. The heroine of TBC is a shy, thin, dark spinster who lives in a small town in 1920’s Canada with her mother and aunt. The heroine of TLOM is a shy, thin, dark spinster who lives in a small town in early 1900s Australia with her mother and aunt. In the first chapter, both women get out of bed, dress in brown and eat porridge for breakfast. It goes on from there. There are differences, but the similarities are too striking for it to be the ‘coincidence’ McCullogh’s people claimed. Either McCullogh thought TBC was such an obscure novel that no one would notice the ripoff – she obviously had no idea that Montgomery is a cultural icon in Canada – or, possibly, she read TLC as a girl and dredged it up out of her subconscious when she needed a plot for TLOM, without realising that it wasn’t original. Either way, it led to a new edition of TBC being published up here.
Great cover, Teddy Pig.
HT “Mad About You” by Alyssa Dean is a fantasy romance set in the US, but it has a Canadian wizard hero and a part Ayaldwode (i just wanted to write that word) heroine.
HR “One Shining Summer” by Quinn Wilder is set in Canada but west coast.
And I second the Sandra Field vote – her HP “The Sun at Midnight” was even set in modern day Nunavut! (NWT when she wrote it).
De-lurking for the first time! I think that the book that you’re looking for Christina is Gentleman Caller by Bobby
Hutchinson.
ummm, is this comment thing really set to show our email addresses as hyperlinks for our names? I thought that generally linked to the URL field?
Uh, y’all know that the Mountie uniform copyright is actually owned by Walt Disney. Right? Mounties these days wear two- and three-piece suits to work.
Thomas Raddall is pretty good, as close to romance as I’ve gotten without going on a manhunt – I’ve read his Hangman’s Beach, Roger Sudden and Pride’s Fancy and they’re all quite romantic. Pride’s Fancy made me squee with delight.
Also, by accident, I found Phoebe Conn’s ‘Beloved Legacy’, which is set during the Acadian expulsion.
There’s also http://www.writers.ns.ca/writers.html – I think they have a few romance writers as members.
If you live in NS and you get into Halifax, try Doull’s on Barrington. It’s an ultra-snooty used bookstore on Barrington St but they do have a local interest room and if you have some time to kill to scour the shelves you’ll probably find a couple in there.
Oh, and if you find any set in Halifax specifically, I’ll send you a crate of cookies for sharing your info.
My absolute favorite canada romance has to be Kat Martin’s Midnight Sun. I am a sucker for anything she writes!