The Seaboard Review of Books October 13, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 43 of The Seaboard Review of Books, October 1, 2025
In this issue:
What the Living Do by Susan E. Wadds (Fiction)
Voices in The Air by Kasia Jaronczyk (Fiction)
A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News by Cary Fagan (Short Fiction)
Van Gogh’s Grasshopper by Michael Pacey (Poetry)
Notes from the Ward by Steffi Tad-y (Poetry)
Lafleur: The Legend by Steven Finn and Pierre Gince (Non-Fiction)
Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
Fiction
What the Living Do by Susan E. Wadds
Susan Wadds’ debut novel, What the Living Do, published by Regal Publishing, is about a young woman Brett who is trying to move forward while dealing with past trauma, illness, and loss.
The Polyphony of Kasia Jaronczyk’s Voices in The Air
Kasia Jaronczyk, the author of Voices in The Air, was inspired by “stories of escape over the Iron Curtain.” Her novel’s story of escape is based on the hijacking of a Polish airliner during the two years that Martial Law was in effect in Poland (1981-1983). To be clear, it draws on a particular incident, but also on a larger general trend of attempts a…
Non-Fiction
Lafleur: The Legend by Steven Finn and Pierre Gince
Lafleur: The Legend, written by Steven Finn and Pierre Gince, provides an in-depth look at the life and legacy of NHL hockey player Guy Lafleur.
Poetry
Van Gogh’s Grasshopper by Michael Pacey
If the speaker of Van Gogh’s Grasshopper were a Biology teacher, his students might call him “a crazy guy” or “an original dude.” His obsessive enthusiasm for insects would fill the classroom to all its corners. Minutiae he shares—“A ladybug’s flight wings / are four times her size,” “walking-stick love-making / can last a world-record of 79 days!”—woul…
Notes from the Ward by Steffi Tad-y
Not everyone who experiences a psychotic break is capable of maintaining finely observed notes throughout the process, and converting these to lyric. In Notes from the Ward, Steffi Tad-y turns her eye and ear to small daily details that become numinous under her pen. Riding public transit, for example, she sees an elderly woman applying moisturizer to c…
Michael Greenstein Reviews
A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News by Cary Fagan
The five stories in Cary Fagan’s A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News bring much good news in their pacing, good humour, and slides into magic realism, each story gaining in length as the book progresses. “The Big Story” pits petit récit against master narrative, as Fagan embeds stories within stories, stacking them like matryoshka dolls. The first-perso…
Brief Notes on Books Present & Past
(Note: clicking on the underlined link takes you to the book’s publisher page or Amazon.ca for more information or for purchasing purposes. Support your local bookseller or independent publisher if you can.)
A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway
What an excellent and unexpected collection of long-form short fiction. Each story is exceptionally compelling, leaning more toward Weird Fiction than traditional narrative—which was a pleasant surprise. I had initially put off reading *Wildcats*, assuming it was just another standard short story compilation. But clearly, the timing was perfect when I finally picked it up.
From the very first page, the stories pull you in with an irresistible sense of mystery and atmosphere. They gave me that rare, comforting feeling that I was in for a truly immersive reading experience.
Highly recommended—especially if you enjoy fiction that veers off-centre into the wonderfully weird. (Contributed by James)
TSR Team News
Melanie Marttila will be on two panels at this year’s Can-Con (October 17 to 19, 2025 at the Brookstreet Hotel, Kanata, Ontario)!
The first will be “The Art of Rest” at 8 pm on Friday, October 17, and the second is “The Taste of Sadness: Writing Emotional Dysregulation” at 2:30 pm on Sunday, October 19.
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