Reader Mary Star recently sent us an email asking for romances set in Canada. Here’s what she said:
I’m hoping the Bitchery can help me out — I’m going on a cruise to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick this fall and clearly need to start thinking about my reading! 🙂 I like bringing books that sort of evoke of the feeling of the vacation and I’d be all for some romances set in Atlantic Canada, especially anything historical.
I’ve read very little at all set in Canada generally except Anne of Green Gables (which I love) and helped inspire me to explore that part of the world more.
Redheadedgirl suggested The Bride Ship by Deborah Hale ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which was mentioned on an early podcast interview she did with Sarah.
This was also the subject of a Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid post. The comments are a goldmine, but the post is around nine years old. I’m sure there are some newer releases out there, especially with the discovery of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s dreaminess.
What Canadian-set books do you recommend?
Has anybody discovered http://www.tripfiction.com/
You type in a destination and it shows you all the books (that have been entered on the site, not every book ever) set in and around that location, of all genres..
Charlotte MacLeod under her alter-ego Alisa Craig wrote a series of cozy mysteries based on a RCMP Mountie and his (eventual) wife. Don’t remember where in Canada the books are set, but MacLeod was from New Brunswick.
Looks like her work has been republished in e-book under her own name. I would love to have them all. But $9+ is excessive for PB’s that I paid less than $5 for back in the day. (This series was originally released starting in 1980.)
If you want Bromance, some of the Aubry/Maturin books are set in Halifax.
You must read the lesser known Lucy Maud Montgomery book “The Blue Castle”. Probably my gateway to all romance novels.
Victoria Barbour writes small-town romances set in Newfoundland. Not quite Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, but still east coast Canada.
I live in Halifax, and I can’t wait to discover new books/authors from this post!
Eve Langlais is a Canadian romance author – she writes light, sexy PNR that are mostly set in Canada. She has a huge backlist. I’ve read Delicate Freakn Flower and Claiming her Geeks – both are set in Canada although the setting isn’t super important to the story and both are light m/f/m. She also writes m/f.
Other Canadian authors that have some romance in their stories:
Charles DeLint – one of the creators of Urban Fantasy. His 80s/90s UF are mostly set in Ottawa. His newer Newford series is set in a fictional NorthAmerican city – I don’t think he ever says whether it’s in the US or Canada, but it seems Canadian to me. Of his Ottawa books, I really love Drink Down the Moon. And Svaha, which is his version of cyberpunk, set in a dystopian future Canada, with a Native American hero. It’s not characteristic of his other work but I love it. And both have good if understated romances.
Margaret Laurence – I read The Diviners in college and enjoyed it. (It may have been the most purely enjoyable book I read in women’s lit class, along with Pride and Prejudice.) It’s a classic of Canadian literature and it’s set in Manitoba. As I recall, there is a romance in it, but it’s understated and I don’t think there’s a hea or hfn. The MC is a white Canadian writer and has an on again, off again relationship with a Metis man – it was published in 1974 so the race stuff may not hold up.
Tanya Huff is a Canadian writer of Fantasy and Science Fiction. None of her stuff is exactly romance and none that I’ve read is set in Eastern Canada. But anyone who likes urban fantasy should check her out. Huff herself is queer and there’s some good representation there.
Guy Gavriel Kay writer fantasy, some of which is romantic, all of which is inspired by real historical places and cultures. I recommend Tigana.
Luanne Rice is always a reliable vacation read for me (sweet, small-town fiction with some tragedy, a romance element, and happy ending) and has a couple of books set partly in Nova Scotia: Summer’s Child and its sequel, Summer of Roses. (Trigger warning for abuse – the overarching plot revolves around woman/child running away from an abusive husband and living under assumed names.)
Sandra Field wrote Harlequin Presents set in Atlantic Canada back in the 80s and 90s. Out of Wedlock, One in a Million, The Winds of Winter (angst fest!), etc. . . Several of her books are on Open Library.
Donna Alward is a Harlequin Romance author who lives in the Halifax area. Most of her stories are set on ranches “out west” as we say here in Nova Scotia, but if you look through her current offerings, you might find something.
LM Montgomery *nailed* the descriptions of PEI. From the “east wind” to the glorious June mornings to the red soil and the blue water. Re-reading some of the Anne books or the Emily Starr books will really give you the flavour of the place.
I wish I knew of more romances set in the Maritimes. There are a lot of mystery writers around here. Lots of historical novels with pirates and adventures. Thomas Raddall (our native son here on the South Shore) researched the history of Nova Scotia extensively and set his novels here, but they were written in the 50’s and 60’s and I could never get into them.
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill has sections set in Nova Scotia. It’s a pretty depressing story and the protagonist’s time here was not happy, but the descriptions are accurate.
I read Burden of Desire by Robert MacNeil a long time ago and remember liking it a lot. It’s set in Halifax in 1917 at the time of the Great Halifax Explosion. I don’t know if you’d call it a romance it’s a love triangle.
Hope this helps! I’ll be checking to see if there are other suggestions.
SO MANY READERS cite “The Blue Castle” as their gateway into romance. So many.
We have a Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada chapter that meets here in Halifax, NS. Here’s the blurb from their website:
‘Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada,was the first Romance Writers of America chapter born in the 21st century. Led by RWAC’s founding president, Victoria LeBlanc, the chapter consisted of two published authors and more than a few writers who had yet to complete their first novel. From those early days in January 2000, RWAC, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia has supported and encouraged and cheered on first time and multi-published authors, Golden Heart and Rita finalists, Pro members and Pan members”.
Their website is http://www.rwaac.org and you could look up the authors represented and then check out their websites.
Hope that helps.
R E G—I so love the Blue Castle by LM Montgomery. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who has read it.
Also would recommend Susan Fox’s series set in the Canadian Rockies. Nominated for a RITA this year.
And if you like Urban Fantasy/PR, Leigh Evans had a fun series a few years back. The Trouble With Fate I think was the first book.
Seconding the Huff, definitely. Her Gale Women urban fantasy series in particular has great Canadian-based action, notably featuring Edmonton and Halifax. Her Vicki Nelsons feature Toronto, and the related Smoke trilogy features Vancouver.
But hey I can actually toss a romance in here, too. Loreth Anne White’s Manhunter was a romantic suspense set in Canada that I quite liked. It’s set in the north of Canada. The hero is a Mountie. <3
Mrs. Mike When I read it, the book was considered biographical, now it’s been proven to be mostly fiction. Still the book wrecked me back in the day. And she marries a Mountie, so there’s that.
Another book is the Birth House by Ami Mckay which is set in Nova Scotia, not exactly a romance but it was very good book.
Maybe “Shipping News” by Annie Proulx? It does have a romance storyline in it and is set in Newfoundland. It might be dark in places, but I liked that the hero was neither hot nor particularly attractive in other ways but still found love. There is a movie version which I did not see, mainly because the hottified the main characters because Hollywood.
“The Republic of Love” by Carol Shields. Set in Winnipeg. All the quirky little stories in it are true.
Also by LM Montgomery- A Tangled Web, which is a collection of short stories with an overarching plot about a feuding family with the matriarch dying and leaving an inheritance-many of the stories are very sweet romances.
I think he Kelley Armstrong Otherworld series is at least partially set in Canada, although I think it’s Toronto…some of her romantic suspense might also be set there.
There are definitely a few category romances with Mounties as heroes, I think I also read one with Canadian mail order brides a few years ago??
I’ve already seen The Blue Castle mentioned (which was my first thought), and would also add Kilmeny of the Orchard (watch for the period appropriate Gypsy racism though, I love the story, but that part makes me cringe), the later Anne novels, and the second two of the Emily Starr novels (Emily Climbs and Emily’s Quest, although really, for the whole experience, you start off when she’s a kid in Emily of New Moon). Also, a bit of caution again on the Emily books, in all three of them, you have the character of Dean Priest, who is basically a creeper that grooms Emily from the time she’s 12. It’s gross, full stop. I chalk it up to being another weird touch that I can attribute to the time period.
No book recs, but be sure to put “Canadian Sunset” on your music playlist! A bit more evocative of train travel than ship, but still…
Oh, and have a great trip!
Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series is based in Canada. Armstrong’s most recent book, City of the Lost, is set in the wilderness of the Yukon. The Argeneau vampire series by Lynsay Sands is set mostly in Canada. And if you like mystery-suspense books, look up author Chevy Stevens, who sets her books in various Canadian locales. Her 2010 debut, Still Missing, is among the best mysteries I’ve read.
@Sandra, I loved Charlotte MacLeod’s Kelling books when I was young! I never read her other series about the mountie, but maybe that’s something I need to remedy. She also wrote a standalone (under the Alisa Craig penname) set in Canada, The Terrible Tide, which takes place in a small town in New Brunswick. It’s a cozy mystery with a mild romance.
Toni Anderson writes contemporary romantic suspense set in Canada – Dangerous Waters and Dark Waters are set in British Columbia. The setting in those books is as much a main character as the heroine and hero.
You guys are awesome! Thank you so much for all these recs and for sharing your experiences. I randomly came across The Blue Castle about ten years ago and loved it. I had never even heard it mentioned before then. For some reason, it seems way less known than the Anne books.
@Jane Lovering, whoa that website sounds amazing! Will check out.
@Sherry Cobb South, thanks for the music idea! You’ve also inspired me to remember that Nova Scotia has some wonderful Celtic-inspired musicians I can look into.
Hallmark had a series called When Calls the Heart that I think was based on Jeanette Oke’s books. There was a hot mountie and I believe it was set somewhere ambiguously out west.
@SB Sarah and Bitchery Powers That Be, thank you for this thread!
Meg Maguire(Cara McKenna)has a book set in CAPE BRETON called THE RELUCTANT NUDE. Ashamed to admit as a Maritimer I haven’t read THE BLUE CASTLE, but I’ll be remedying this omission.
Found this interesting suggestion on Trip Fiction:
The Sea Road
Author(s): Margaret Elphinstone
Location(s): Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland
Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
Era(s): 11th Century
A haunting, compelling historical novel, “The Sea Road” is a daring re-telling of the 11th-century Viking exploration of the North Atlantic from the viewpoint of one extraordinary woman. Gudrid lives at the remote edge of the known world, in a starkly beautiful landscape where the sea is the only connection to the shores beyond. It is a world where the old Norse gods are still invoked, even as Christianity gains favour, where the spirits of the dead roam the vast northern ice-fields, tormenting the living, and Viking explorers plunder foreign shores. Taking the accidental discovery of North America as its focal point, Gudrid’s narrative describes a multi-layered voyage into the unknown, all recounted with astonishing immediacy and rich atmospheric detail.
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Steeped in the intriguing history of Niagara Falls, this is an epic love story as rich, spellbinding and majestic as the falls themselves.
1915. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era in Niagara Falls. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the youngest daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduation day at her boarding school, she is impatient to return to her picturesque family home near the falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she left it. Her father has lost his job at the power company, her mother is reduced to taking in sewing from the society ladies she once entertained, and Isabel, Bess’s vivacious older sister, is a shadow of her former self. She has shut herself in her bedroom, barely eating and harboring a secret.
The night of her return, Bess meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him against her family’s strong objections. He is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny ability to predict the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the falls for themselves. As the couple’s lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future.
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of Niagara Falls, at a time when daredevils shot the river rapids in barrels and great industrial fortunes were made and lost as quickly as lives disappeared, The Day the Falls Stood Still is an intoxicating debut novel.
The Halifax Connection by Marie Jakober
A Canadian counter-intelligence novel with a memorable romance at its heart, The Halifax Connection brings to life 1860s Montreal and Halifax with wit, action and a finale that will leave you breathless.
Canada in 1862 is still a few scattered colonies run by an indifferent British crown. As the American Civil War heats up south of the border, Southern Confederates flood into Montreal and Halifax, among them numerous spies and military officers planning secret missions against the Union – missions they hope will provoke a war between England and the United States, throwing the whole weight of the British Empire into the Confederate camp.
Erryn Shaw is a charming British aristocrat who has been banished to the colonies and now wants nothing more than to run a theatre. Instead, he is convinced to spy for the British and finds himself befriending Southern Rebels to learn of their plans. On a mission to Montreal, he gets wind of a sinister plot-a plan the Confederates believe will win them the war. And he can’t seem to find a way to stop it.
At the same time, he meets and courts an intriguing woman, Sylvie Bowen, who escaped the cotton mills of England seeking a better life. Though she’s drawn to Erryn’s charm and cleverness, she once met with disaster at the hands of the South, and he knows it is only a matter of time until she discovers his ties to the Rebels and turns against him.
Drawing on actual events, The Halifax Connection captures a fascinating and largely forgotten piece of Canada’s history. From the comfortable parlours and ballrooms of the bustling metropolis of Montreal to the back alleyways of the port town of Halifax, to the deadly high seas patrolled by Southern raiders, the novel draws a remarkable picture of Canada in the mid-1800s – its people, its power struggles, its hopes and its dreams.
Goodreads’ Canadian Booklist
https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/canadian
If you’re an author, Harlequin is looking for Canadian heroes:
http://happyeverafter.usatoday.com/2016/07/01/ooooh-canada-harlequin-writing-contest-canadian-heroes/
Julianne MacLean’s ADAM’S PROMISE, a Harlequin Historical from the early 2000s, takes place in Nova Scotia.
I’ll second Loreth Anne White’s MANHUNTER. Very good book. Several of her other titles are also set in Canada. I remember enjoying HEART OF A RENEGADE and SAFE PASSAGE, both of which take place in British Columbia.
Joyce Sullivan wrote a number of Harlequin Intrigues set in Canada. Her work was very uneven, but I can recommend URGENT VOWS (Ottawa) and THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (British Columbia).
Just remembered an old Harlequin Temptation I really loved back in the day–THE ROCKY RIDGE MAN by Meredith March. Looks like it was her only book. It was set in Canada.
An old favorite, Judith Duncan, often wrote romances set in Canada as well.
I completely support “The Blue Castle” – it is one of the best book sever 🙂
I also wonder why no one has mentioned Alice Munroe – she is from Canada and won Nobel Price for her short stories, which are predominantly about women (but not strictly romance…). The setting is usually “normal life in small town” and on the outside “not much really happens”, but on the inside… – highly recommendable read.
@Mary Star:
You are very welcome!!
If western Canada is okay, I adore Teegan Loy’s m/m THE MAGIC BROOM! It’s set during tryouts for the 2010 Winter Olympics, where a klutzy journalist is forced to try all the winter sports for an assignment. There are many cute scenes of him trying (and failing) at hockey, etc. before he meets the local curling team and falls for one of the guys.
The best Maritime-set book I’ve read lately isn’t a romance at all, but a biography of Halifax musician Joel Plaskett: NOWHERE WITH YOU by Josh O’Kane. It really does an amazing job of setting up the whole East Coast music scene, how most musicians had to leave to have success, and how Joel stayed and succeeded anyway. Of course it’s great if you know his music (and you should, he’s awesome!), but it’s also interesting if you just like the area or Canadian bands like Sloan (as an unexpected bonus, I now ship Joel with Sloan’s adorable Chris Murphy circa 1992, when they were both in HFX).
Oh well as long as we’re talking Canadian musical non-fiction, let me heartily endorse Where I Belong, by Alan Doyle, lead singer of (the now sadly retired *sniff*) Great Big Sea. He tells a delightful tale of growing up in rural Newfoundland, getting started in music, and leading right up to the formation of GBS. <3
Jenny Holiday’s 49th Floor Series is set in downtown Toronto. Book #2 Sleeping With Her Enemy is a fun, sexy frenemies to lovers story with a hot half-Asian hero. Recommended!
Love, love, love THE BLUE CASTLE. And I remember MRS. MIKE was also a wonderful (but cold!) read.
I also highly recommend THE LONGEST NIGHT by Kara Braden. “Watson” is living in the remote wilds of Canada and suffering PTSD after the war and “Sherlock” is sent by his brother to recover from his addictions. It was revised and adapted some, but nothing like a secluded “whatever will we do out here all alone” cabin-in-the-woods story.
The Painted House by Drew Zachary is an m/m romance set in Nova Scotia.
Tanya Huffs’ The Wild Ways is largely set in Nova Scotia, but you need to start with The Enchantment Emporium set in Calgary and finish with The Future Falls to get the full effect.
If you want a historical Canadian read, I recommend “Heaven in His Arms” by Lisa Ann Verge. The setting is mostly the Canadian frontier in the 1600’s. It’s an MOC plot, between a lower-class Frenchwoman, who is masquerading as someone of the nobility and a French-Canadian fur trapper. Definitely would appeal to fans of Sara Donati and Pamela Clare’s early American wilderness books. Lots of stuff about Native American culture, wilderness survival lore, Canadian history, I ate it up.