About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
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Description
The nature of relationships is skilfully illuminated in this collection of stories by award-winning author Holley Rubinsky. South of Elfrida delves into the lives of those coming face to face with personal truths that require resilience, humour and the ability to change.
With a clear eye for the complexities of the human heart, Rubinsky’s stories take the reader to deeper understandings about the nature of love, loss and longing. Spare and rich with wit, these stories celebrate the act of self-renewal.
Editorial Reviews
Quill & Quire includes South of Elfrida on their Spring preview for 2013.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the company of these fragile, tough, scarred, resilient characters. Populated by an ensemble cast who carry their homes with them as they move through trailer parks, emu farms, border crossings, and along dusty Arizona highways, this book is filled with indelible individuals who . . . arrive at surprising destinations, gather themselves together, and move on. This is a book to be treasured. —Myrl Coulter, author of The House with the Broken Two
The stories are acutely observed and very fluently written; they're sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always engaging. I loved the desert landscapes and relished being plunged into a world not my own—one of people on the move, snowbirds, border-crossers, people between one thing and the next. And I really enjoyed the fauna. So much of modern fiction is merely human, but here characters relate passionately not only to each other, but also to their environments and the animals, domestic and wild, with whom they live. —Kathy Page, author of The Story of My Face and Alphabet
In these tender and surprising stories, Rubinsky is the voice of a true original. Quirky, moving, and laugh-out-loud funny. —Caroline Adderson, author of The Sky Is Falling and Pleased to Meet You
Holley Rubinsky spoke to CBC Radio's Daybreak South
There's a youthful exuberance about Holley Rubinsky's stories. —Story Circle Book Reviews
The characters in Holley Rubinsky’s fourth book (and second collection of short stories) are simultaneously ordinary and quirky, predatory and loving . . . In a literary world where clever verbiage and narrative sleight-of-hand is too often celebrated over substance, Rubinsky’s voice is wise and straight-up. —Coastal Spectator
South of Elfrida makes the 49th Shelf's The Books We're Waiting For: Spring Preview 2013.
Summer issue of BC BookWorld makes South of Elfrida one of their staff picks.
Rubinsky’s characters strive to redefine identities in flux. In the face of aging and other obstacles both corporeal and emotional, they manage a delicate balance between a sense of autonomy and a desire for belonging. —The Winnipeg Review
Holley Rubinsky's new collection is a treat for all the senses. Each story startles while at the same time rings true. —Judy Toews, author of Never Say Diet: Discover Your Body's Inner Wisdom
If you’re like me, you’ll want to make your way through Holley Rubinsky’s South of Elfrida slowly, savouring the earthy quirkiness of her characters; the masterful sense of pace; the carefully constructed mise-en-scene of each short story. Even then you may find yourself going back over what you’ve read to reacquaint yourself with a turn of phrase that brought a bizarre kind of glamour to something mundane. Rubinsky’s words do have a way of staying with you. —Dianne Linden, author of On Fire
The descriptions are exquisite, as are the details of the characters' lives. Holley Rubinsky is wise in the ways of the world and in the complications of the yearning heart. —Alistair MacLeod
These eighteen stories are Holley Rubinsky's gift to the world, each one equal parts intelligence, sadness and jokes. Her empathy for her characters is vast, her craft pitch-perfect, and each of these eighteen worlds is an authentic place with even-more authentic troubles. Many lives end in these pages, but just as many begin anew—stories swerve from the loss of wisdom to the wisdom of loss but are never less than absolutely joyful. —Adam Lewis Schroeder, author of In the Fabled East
