A literary saga, spanning two generations and two cultures, Canadian and Japanese, reminiscent in writing style and appeal to the work of Isabel Allende. Suddenly finding herself motherless at the age of six, Vera is left in the care of her grandfather, who spends long periods away at sea, leaving her alone back in Vancouver. When she reaches her teens, Vera is taken by her grandfather's mistress to a small island in Japan. After years of loneliness, she finds a place where she can feel comfortable. The women of the island take her in and she learns to dive for pearls. Immersed in her surroundings, she meets a mysterious stranger, a man who is trained as a ceremonial sword polisher, who brings her into touch with the outside world. Every day, they listen to the mounting rhetoric on the radio and must live with the knowledge of the havoc that the Japanese are wreaking in China. Then the worst happens. Vera is forced to return to Canada by a father whom she has long thought is dead. World War Two breaks out. The idyll is over. But Vera never forgets her island life, the sword polisher, or her true identity. Determined to regain the passion and joy that she once knew, she must return to Japan, to the one place that she truly belonged.

Three Views of Crystal Water

Literature & Fiction

katherine-govier

Contemporary

Fourth Estate

A literary saga, spanning two generations and two cultures, Canadian and Japanese, reminiscent of the work of Isabel Allende. Suddenly finding herself motherless at the age of six, Vera is left in the care of her grandfather, who spends long periods away at sea, leaving her alone back in Vancouver. When she reaches her teens, Vera is taken by her grandfather's mistress to a small island in Japan. After years of loneliness, she finds an island where she can feel comfortable. The women of the island take her in and she learns to dive for pearls. Immersed in her surroundings, she meets a mysterious stranger, a man who is trained as a ceremonial sword polisher, who brings her into touch with the outside world. Every day, they listen to the mounting rhetoric on the radio and must live with the knowledge of the havoc that the Japanese are wreaking in China. Then the worst happens. Vera is forced to return to Canada by a father whom she has long thought is dead. World War Two breaks out. The idyll is over. But Vera never forgets her island life, the sword polisher, or her true identity. Determined to regain the passion and joy that she once knew, she must return to Japan, to the one place that she truly belonged.

Harper-perennial

Without a Guide : Contemporary Women's Travel Adventures

Travel

Rivers Oram Press/Pandora List

"Everyone lives on Brunswick Avenue sooner orlater." So begins Fables of Brunswick Avenue,Katherine Govier’s first collection of short stories, which found her anaudience that has expanded with each subsequent book.The 16 stories in this collection capture turning points in thelives of characters who have migrated to the city, and ended upas everyoneinevitably doeson Brunswick Avenue. A restaurateur in "The Garden"collects look-alike waitresses but discovers that, as one, they resist hisadvances. In "Responding to Pain," a woman rescues a suicidal friend,only to realize that she is angry enough to kill her. And in "BrunswickAvenue," a writer comes to understand that her neighbourhood isprovisional, and in its draft stages, like her life. Infused with Govier’smagical ability to conjure time and place, Fables of Brunswick Avenue isabout starting out, and starting over.

FABLES OF BRUNSWICK AVENUE: The Thief; Responding to Pain; A New Start; The Inde

British & Irish

Penguin Canada (APB)

Between Men

Penguin Putnam~trade

At eighty-five, Cory Ditchburn has finally agreed to a retrospective of her art. For years she had refused, afraid that any summing up of her life's work would mean she'd never work again. But now vanity has won out - vanity and the need to see it all one more time.As she sorts through her photographs with Tyke, the son she abandoned for her lover and for World War II, each image projects Cory into one of the split-seconds that have strung themselves together as her life. Her pictures give her back the story of her past - from her beginnings in Pointe au Baril, Ontario, a place of rocky islands and forests; to her days in London, England, where she honed her skills as a photographer and met the great love of her life; to war-ravaged Europe where she worked as a war correspondent for Lord Beaverbrook, travelling with the ranks of soldiers, earning fame as "the girl photographer"; to her self-imposed exile at a fishing cabin in Safe Harbour.Together, Cory and Tyke retrace the dramatic and sometimes painful path that has led them to the present. Mother and son reclaim each other, and relive an extraordinary woman's life.

Angel walk

Little, Brown (USA)

Hearts of flame

VIKING

Without a Guide: Contemporary Women's Travel Adventures

Walter & Ross Macfarlane

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by katherine-govier. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by katherine-govier