BC Books From Vancouver Island & the Coast

Pretensions, conspiracy, lies … all play a part in this riveting book that kicks off TouchWood Editions’ new mystery series featuring Coast Salish investigator Silas Seaweed.

A billionaire’s daughter with an unsavoury past has mysteriously disappeared. Silas Seaweed, a savvy, street-smart investigator based in Victoria, B.C., is put on the case. His search for the young woman leads him on a trail of murder, greed and obsessive violence. Overcoming such obstacles as a pair of ruthless cocai …

I knew that if I dived deep enough, the bullets would lose their killing velocity. I heard, or sensed, another explosive blast. My left arm was useless. I kept diving, down and out into deeper, blacker water . . .

Coast Salish investigator Silas Seaweed is back in another suspenseful page-turner. What begins as a missing-person investigation takes a nasty turn when party girl Jane Colby is found drowned, strangulation marks around her neck. Silas soon discovers that some of Jane's friends would …

When Fort Victoria was first established in the mid-nineteenth century, eight pioneer families of Europe’s upper class formed the social elite of the modest colony. The self-named aristocracy of this new land, these families shaped a world suited to their proper tastes on the upper floors of the fort, and eventually, in beautiful homes that imitated the height of fashion in Europe. However, between their tea parties and balls, these particular families greatly influenced the progress of the ci …

This lively biography of Bishop Edward Cridge and his wife Mary paints a vivid picture of early Victoria as it developed from an isolated Hudson's Bay Company post into the bustling capital of British Columbia. Recruited from England by Governor James Douglas in 1854 to be the Church of England chaplain of Fort Victoria, Edward Cridge became an important figure in the spiritual life of the city as the rector of Christ Church. The Cridges also became two of Victoria's foremost social reformers, l …

Shortlisted for the 2009 George Ryga Award.

This is the story of an average family that has never been the same . . . since its eldest child was swarmed and killed by her peers on a moonlit night, November 14, 1997 . . . It is the story of what sudden and horrific violence can do to a family, and how a family somehow remains intact in the face of such events. —from the prologue by Lynne Van Luven

At the time of their 14-year-old daughter Reena's murder, Manjit and Suman Virk had already been …

Built in 1889 and now home to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Spencer Mansion is a magnificent building with a rich and layered history. With detailed research, historian and author Robert Ratcliffe Taylor describes the original appearance of the house, designed by William Ridgway Wilson for Alexander Green and his family, as well as its inhabitants over the decades. Also known as Gyppeswyk, after the village in England where Green wed Theophila Rainer, the house is more commonly referr …

Young Emily Carr has no interest in learning to be a lady. She loves animals and the outdoors, and she is beginning to discover that what she loves most of all is drawing and painting. Will she find a way to develop her talent in the straitlaced world of nineteenth-century Victoria, British Columbia? Discovering Emily is the first of two books in a series. Book two is Emily's Dream

In the sequel to Discovering Emily, Emily Carr is determined to become an artist.

Emily's parents have died, and she and her siblings are ruled by the iron-willed eldest, Dede. Dede is more concerned with decorum than with ridiculous dreams and is not averse to punishing Emily severely. In the face of such resistance, and in the conservative climate of nineteenth-century Victoria, Emily must find a way to make her dream come true.