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• From the acclaimed author of Lemon comes a clever and heartbreaking new novel of love and revelation

  Harriet is 11 going on 30. Her mixed-media art is a source of wonder to her younger brother, Irwin, but an unmitigated horror to the panoply of insufficiently grown-up grown-ups who surround her. She plans to run away to Algonquin Park, hole up in a cabin like Tom Thomson and paint trees; and so, to fund her escape, she runs errands for the seniors who inhabit the Shangrila, the decrepit apartment building that houses her fractured family.

  Determined, resourceful, and a little reckless, Harriet tries to navigate the clueless adults around her, dumpster dives for the flotsam and jetsam that fuels her art, and attempts to fathom her complicated feelings for Irwin, who suffers from hydrocephalus. On the other hand, Irwins love for Harriet is not conflicted at all. Shes his compass. But Irwin himself must untangle the web of the human heart.

  Masterful and piercingly funny, Strube is at the top of her considerable form in this deliciously subversive story of love and revelation.

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• Cordelia Strubeis an accomplished playwright and the author of nine critically acclaimed novels, includingAlex & Zee,Teaching Pigs to Sing, andLemon. Winner of the CBC literary competition and a Toronto Arts Foundation Award, she has been nominatedfor the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Book Award, the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Prix Italia, and long-listed for theScotiabank Giller Prize. A two-time finalist for ACTRA’sNellie Award celebrating excellence in Canadian broadcasting, she is also athree-time nominee for the ReLit Award.

• Published: April 2016

  ISBN: 9781770412965

  Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.

  Pages: 376

I fell in love with Harriet from the first chapter. She has the most unique way of looking at the world and the book is nearly laugh-out-loud funny at parts, but in the most morbid of ways. I was so moved by Harriets story and, even as my heart was breaking, I was so delighted to get to meet her brother Irwin. This is a must read for me this year. Insomniac Bibliophile

This is one of the BEST books I have read in a very long time. . . This is one of those rare books that works much humour and lightheartedness into some really heavy subject matter in a completely appropriate and realistic way. Bravo, Cordelia Strube! Lit. Wit. Wine & Dine.

Strube captures a madcap sense of momentum and consequence that never falters or overwhelms. Each character is part of Strubes deliberately constructed card tower, the building of which, as readers anticipate its eventual fall, provides the narrative with a tremendous amount of strength and personality. Publishers Weekly, starred

Dark, funny, crushingly sad, and breathtakingly hopeful. Becca in Halifax

Strube masterfully breathes life into her dynamic characters, allowing us to feel love, hate, and confusion with them. . . Thought-provoking and emotional, this novel is a must-read. Sad Hat Diaries

The novel turns, subtly and heartbreakingly, on questions of hardship, parenting, love, and resilience. I was not prepared for how hard this book would hit me. . . This book is one of the most human stories I’ve ever read. A Bookish Type

Touching and cynical, deeply sad and very funny, On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light is the work of an author in full command of her art. If On the Shores is not on awards shortlists this fall, it will be both a surprise and a grievous error. Beach Metro Community News

Harriet, in On the Shores of Darkness There Is Light, is a many-splendored, singular creation, and the novel goes and goes and never falters. Pickle Me This

Quietly elegiac and despairing, the novel keeps true to Strubes singular vision. Macleans

In her feisty protagonist Harriet, Cordelia Strube has created one of the most forceful and unsettling voices in contemporary CanLit narrating the experience of being an angry and emotionally abandoned adolescent. Quill & Quire

I also loved Cordelia Strube’s On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light, which broke my heart, but was just as funny as it was sad. The Walrus

Fantastic. The Lost Bookmark

A masterful blend of comedy and tragedy . . . The tapestry of humanity that Strube presents is richly detailed and profoundly moving. Quill & Quire, starred review

Strube is the dark horse favourite to succeed Alice Munro as a chronicler of melancholy stories about teen girls. Toronto Life

In some parts its funny, other parts poetic, others tragic. All of it very realistic. A Novel Haul

Its this sassy voice and not really like an 11-year-old would actually speak but it completely works. What is so beautiful about this story is that at its heart its a story about the relationship between siblings. CBC Radios Day 6 Should I Read It

I have seldom seen such a beautiful book with so many unlikeable characters. Book-Stuffed Blog

Strube creates an entire world of love and loss, humour and heartbreak . . . The writing, on a line-by-line basis, serves as a reminder that Strube is one of Canadas more expressive and creative prose stylists. It is, at heart, a uniquely intimate exploration of the perilous fragility of the human body, and the indomitable strength of the human soul. Toronto Star

I would recommend On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light to anyone who craves a good story full of emotion. . . I give this story a solid 4 out of 5 stars because I loved it and I know you will, too. Nimrod Street

Strubes true talent, which was as readily on display in her last novel, 2012s Milosz, is for layering characters and situations and subplots on top of each other, one by one, until the entire Shangrila apartment building buzzes like a beehive. Globe and Mail

At nearly 400 pages, the novel is long, but swiftly paced and never dull. The bleakness of its considerations are broken up with incredible humour, from the cacophony of the voices in the background to the sheer audacity of Harriet herself, her nerve, all the things she is willing to do and say. Pickle Me This

Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and tear-jerking, On the Shores is a masterful exploration of being flawed and human, and finding grace and light on the shores of darkness. EVENT