Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Augusta has always been a woman with passions and desires - almost too big for her confined life as a farm girl and then wife to sweet but passive Karl. Her dubious gift of second sight, inherited from her mother, does not warn her of a reckless affair and the trouble it will bring to her life.

En el marco de una naturaleza imponente, el despertar de la sensualidad, el aprendizaje de la vida y unos personajes memorables en la mejor novela de este autor.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz unearths a host of curious characters and explores the rutted path towards self awareness: the awakenings to sexuality, place in the family, community and world at large.

El secreto de las abejas es una obra brillante, una historia de amor cuya sensibilidad y ternura la han convertido en Bestseller.La protagonista de la novela es una heroína, Augusta Olsen, que mediante flash blacks, nos introduce en su dura infancia trascurrida en una granja aislada en Canadá, casada con tan sólo 18 años con un triste hombre que no le dará la felicidad. Una vida reflejo de la vida de muchas mujeres.El valor fundamental de esta novela es el retrato psicológico de una mujer luchadora y vital, que a través de la sabiduría que confiere la madurez reflexiona sobre su vida reconciliándose con su pasado.

For fans of Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, a young woman finds a magical atlas that can transport her both backward and forward in timeEvery life follows a path. Elsie has just found the map to hers.Elsie Campbells life has stalled. Since her mothers death five years ago, shes lived in her sisters basement in the same small town where she was born. She has no real friends, no romance and spends her days crunching data for her dads mapping firm. And now, as her sister marries, shes about to lose her home.The day after a solar eclipse, Elsie hikes to the lookout where her mother died. There she finds an atlas filled with maps and astrological charts that have the power to send her to twelve turning points in her life. In visiting the past, Elsie makes surprising discoveries about herself. But she can also visit the futurewhich leads to unexpected consequences. When the atlas leads her both back to her old boyfriend and toward a new love, Elsie finds herself at a crossroads where she must choose between a familiar and nostalgic road or an uncharted path. Can she really change the course of her life? And should she?

If you almost had everything that you wanted, howhard would you fight to protect it?Kira is engaged to the man of her dreams: hes charming,handsome, wealthy, and a great dad to their baby, Evie, and his thirteen-year-olddaughter, Olive. Having grown up with a troubled relationship with her motherand mostly estranged from her father, Kira craves a close family and securehome, and with Aaron, Evie and Olive, she almost has it. The only problem is Aaronsex-wife, Madison, whos out of control and trying to get to Olive. When Kira takesthe girls out of town to her childhood summer home and finds out that Madison hasfollowed them, she panics. Between the beach and the forest on Manitoulin Island, Kirafights to protect Olive, Evie and her fiance, until a dark secret threatens tounravel the life that is almost hers. With the future she has built hanging inthe balance, and her past haunting her at every turn, Kira must choose who tobelieve and who she wants to be.

National BestsellerIf the man you love went missing, how far would you go to find him? Someone is watching Piper, and she thinks she knows who it is: the bushman. But theres more than one danger lurking in this temperate rainforest. Poachers are taking down old growth trees and jeopardizing plans for a park, a project Piper is passionate about. When she pressures her husband, Ben, a natural resources officer, to identify the culprits, he takes his drone into the wilderness to track them down. And then, just as a snowstorm hits, he goes missing. Refusing to believe her husband is gone, Piper begins a desperate search for him, one that continues long after the rescue team has given up. But as she begins to uncover what really happened to Ben, Piper is pursued by a stalker who may have taken her husbands life and now threatens to take hers.

My memories are so like that hat full of butterflies, some already deteriorating the moment they are collected, some breathed back to life now and again, for a brief moment, by the scent on a passing windthe smell of an orange, perhaps, or a whiff of brown-sugar fudgebefore drifting away, just out of my reach. How much of myself flits away with each of these tattered memories? How much of myself have I already lost? (Turtle Valley, p. 289)It is the end of a long, dry summer in Turtle Valley, British Columbia, and when a raging forest fire threatens to destroy Kats childhood home, she returns with her son and estranged husband to help her elderly parents prepare for evacuation. Haunted by memories of the relationship she had with a man she loved and left fifteen years before, Kat discovers a ghostly link between her mothers tragic past and her own quest to find a love that has the power to fulfill and sustain her. Sure to be remembered as one of her most satisfying novels, Turtle Valley is a page-turner filled with the lush descriptions, emotional truths and dark poetry that have made Gail Anderson-Dargatz an international literary sensation.

"The cure for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mothers scrapbook, under the recipe for my fathers favourite oatcakes: Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more."So begins Gail Anderson-Dargatzs extraordinary first novel, a seductive and thrilling book that captures the heart and imagination, as filled with the magic and mystery of life as it is with its lurking evils and gut-wrenching hardships. The Cure for Death by Lightning sold more than a staggering 100,000 copies in Canada alone and became a bestseller in Great Britain, later to be published in the United States and Europe. It was nominated for the Giller Prize, the richest fiction prize in Canada, and received a Betty Trask Award in the U.K.The Cure for Death by Lightning takes place in the poor, isolated farming community of Turtle Valley, British Columbia, in the shadow of the Second World War. The fifteenth summer of Beth Weekss life is full of strange happenings: a classmate is mauled to death; children go missing on the nearby reserve; an unseen predator pursues Beth. She is surrounded by unusual characters, including Nora, the sensual half-Native girl whose friendship provides refuge; Filthy Billy, the hired hand with Tourettes Syndrome; and Noras mother, who has a mans voice and an extra little finger. Then theres the darkness within her own family: her domineering, shell-shocked father has fits of madness, and her mother frequently talks to the dead. Beth, meanwhile, must wrestle with her newfound sexuality in a harsh world where nylons, perfume and affection have no place. Then, in a violent storm, she is struck by lightning in her arm, and nothing is quite the same again. She decides to explore the dangers of the bush.Beth is a strong, honest, and compassionate heroine, bringing hope and joy into an environment that is often cruel. The character of Beths haunted mother infuses the book with life by means of her scrapbook of recipes scattered throughout, with luscious descriptions of food, gardening, and remedies, both practical and bizarre. Seen through Beths eyes, the West Coast landscape is full of beauty and mysteries, with its forests and rivers, and its rich native culture.The Globe and Mail commented that The Cure for Death by Lightning was "Canadian to the core," with hints of Susannah Moodie and Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Anderson-Dargatzs vision of rural life has drawn comparisons with William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A magic realism reminiscent of Latin American literature is also present, as flowers rain from the sky, and men turn into animals. Yet the style of The Cure for Death by Lightning, which the Boston Globe called "Pacific Northwest Gothic," is wholly original. Launched in a year with more than the usual number of excellent first novels (1996 was also the year of Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels), this book with its assured voice heralds a worthy successor to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro.

When fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks family is attacked by a grizzly, her father becomes increasingly violent, making him a danger to his neighbors, his family, and especially Beth. Meanwhile, several young children from the nearby Indian reservation have gone missing, and Beth fears that something is pursuing her in the bush. But friendship with an Indian girl connects her to a mythology that enriches her landscape; and an unexpected protector shores up her world. Set on an isolated Canadian farm in the midst of World War II, The Cure for Death by Lightning evokes a life at once harshly demanding and rich in sensory pleasures: the deafening chatter of starlings, the sight of thousands of painted turtles crossing a road, the smell of baking that fills the Weekss kitchen. The novel is sprinkled throughout with recipes and remedies from the scrapbook Beths mother keeps, a boon to Beth as she learns to face down her demons--and one of many elements that give The Cure for Death by Lightning its enchanting vitality.

International BestsellerShortlisted for the 1998 Giller PrizeA Globe and Mail Notable Book of 1998Over 40,000 copies sold in hardcoverIn A Recipe for Bees, Gail Anderson-Dargatz gives readers a remarkable woman to stand beside Hagar Shipley and Daisy Goodwin but Augusta Olsen also has attitude, a wicked funny bone, and the dubious gift of second sight.At home in Courtenay, B.C., Augusta anxiously awaits news of her dearly loved son-in-law Gabe, who is undergoing brain surgery miles away in Victoria. Her best friend Rose is waiting for Augusta to call as soon as she hears. Through Rose, we begin to learn the story of Augustas sometimes harsh, sometimes magical life: the startling vision of her mothers early death; the loneliness of her marriage to Karl and her battle with Karls detestable father, Olaf. We are told of her gentle, platonic affair with a church minister, of her not-so-platonic affair with a man from the town, and the birth of her only child. We also learn of the special affinity between Rose and Augusta, who share the delights and exasperations of old age.Just as The Cure for Death by Lightning offers recipes and remedies, A Recipe for Bees is saturated with bee lore, and is full of rich domestic detail, wondrous imagery culled from rural kitchens and gardens, shining insights into ageing, family and friendship. And at its heart, is the life, death and resurrection of an extraordinary marriage

Gail Anderson-Dargatzs evocative novel of one womans simple but passionately lived life reminds of us of the pleasure to be found in human contact and simple, natural things.Raised by her silent but companionable father and a mother who kept bees, headstrong Augusta marries shy, deferential Karl, twelve years her senior, and goes to live with him on his fathers remote farm. Terrified that she will literally die from loneliness and isolation, she finds work in town, and for a short time, fulfillment with another man in a romance that will reverberate throughout her life. Not until many years later does she find her salvation in beekeeping, the practice she first learned from her mother. It is beekeeping that reconnects her to the world and at long last brings fire to her steadfast marriage.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz, the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, brings readers once again into the heart of rural Canada with A Rhinestone Button. As funny as it is tender, it is a novel full of true-to-life characters, natural wonder, and sweet surprises.Despite growing up in the small farming town of Godsfinger, Alberta, Job Sunstrum was always a bit of an outsider. A thin young man with blond, curly hair, he loved baking and cooking, and certainly did not fit in with the rough-and-tumble farm boys around town. Even when Job takes over the farm after his fathers death and his brothers departure to train as a pastor, his community remains his animals, and perhaps the church women with whom he shares his baking on Sundays. Lonely beyond belief, overwhelmed by religious guilt, and taut with fear at the thought of what life might have in store for him, Job can only turn to God and hope that someday, things will turn around. Only his synesthesia his ability to see sounds as colours, and feel vibrations as solid forms provides him with passing moments of solace, but it also reaffirms for him that he experiences the world in a way the other people of Godsfinger could not possibly understand. Then one year, Jobs tightly coiled life begins to fall apart, and even the small sureties that got him through the days are torn away from him. The colours even disappear from sounds. Faced with change on every level and not knowing how to live outside the world he was brought up in, Job allows himself to be caught up in the Pentecostal drive of a preacher named Jack Divine, in hopes that clinging to his beliefs, proving his faith, and doing what others expect of him will make everything all right. But when his new-found religious fervour only accelerates his despair and his world continues to crumble, Job is surprised to find that true faith can be found in earthly experiences, and come from the most unlikely of sources. That a world without the familiar colours and shapes of sound is not half-heard, as he feared, but freed to break out in song.Like Anderson-Dargatzs previous novels, A Rhinestone Button is a loving and magical portrait of small-town life that makes us question what we believe is real, and true.

Les abelles han estat molt importantseh la vida de ''Augusta; li han donat una estabilitat emocional que no havia pogut aconseguir de cap altra manera. L''Augusta Olsen és una dona gran que viu amb el Karl, el seu marit, a l''illa de Vancouver.Mentre espera que li arribin noves del seu gendre, a qui li estan fent una operacio quirurgica al cervell, reflexiona sobre la vida, tan dura, que ha tingut fins ara. Rememorant epoques passades, arriba a trobar un sentit a tot plegat: la mort, molt aviat, de la seva mare; el seu propi casament amb el Karl, un home solitari i mes gran que ella; els moments dificils en una granja aillada, amb la seva sogra; la relacio que va tenir amb un home d''una ciutat propera; els anys dedicats a veure creixer la seva fiila, i, al cap d''un temps, la reconciliacio de l''Augusta amb ella mateixa, amb el seu marit i amb la seva filla, tan conflictiva, gracies a la passio per les abelles. El secret de les abelles es una exploracio de la vida de les relacions humanes, i ens recorda que mai no es tard per ser feliços, perque l''amor pot arribar de maneres diferents i en qualsevol moment.