C.K. Kelly Martin’s YA writing is the kind you want to give the teens in your life. It’s written for them, not adult crossover readers, and it meets teens where they live. — Quill & Quire
E-copies of my literary horror Shantallow are on sale for $2.99 across major online booksellers for October. If teenage exes kidnapped for ransom and held in a malevolent abandoned house sounds like your thing this one's for you.
When Misha sees the girl from his recurring nightmares—a girl he's never set eyes on while awake—in a neighbour's front lawn he can't believe his eyes. The two tumble into an intense but ultimately toxic relationship.
Months after it's over, Misha still can't entirely let go. Driving past Tanvi's house he witnesses a kidnapping in progress—hers. When he attempts to intervene he's beaten, bound, and thrown into the back of a utility van with Tanvi, her ten-year-old cousin Lauren, and another teenager. The four are driven to a decaying, remote house, and told no one will be hurt if they cooperate. But soon the entire group is under siege from something far more sinister than the captors themselves.
As the house grows more hostile and the supernatural violence escalates, the fate of the kidnappers and the hostages entwine. Misha must not only fight for his life, but come to terms with the things he's done and the long shadow his father's abuse has cast over his life.
Rights will soon be reverted for three of my young adult books so I've been working hard on cover art plus print and ePub files. With any luck these new versions of The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, Delicate and Shantallow (the latter published under the author name Cara Martin) should be available from major online booksellers within the next ten to fourteen days. Voila the new covers below!
Most of the text within hasn't been changed, aside from an updated section regarding intimate partner violence at the end of Delicate to include some fresher stats and resources. Unfortunately, since Delicate was first published in 2015 intimate partner violence in Ontario has increased substantially. "But most cases of domestic violence still go unreported. In fact in 2019, 80% of those who experienced intimate partner violence did not report to police."
Other things you'll see dealt with in Delicate are a dangerous peanut allergy, and a case of chlamydia. It's not the end of the world when one of the main characters, Ivy, catches chlamydia from having sex with her ex-boyfriend sans condom, but it really sucks. Or more accurately, it burns. The second cousin, Lucan, she barely knows at the start of the novel is having an exceptionally crappy summer too (losing patience with overhearing his mom and her new boyfriend have sex)—something the two bond over, until even that gets complicated . . .
Meanwhile in The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing fifteen-year-old Serena and her friends are intent on fighting the sexualization they continually face from many of their male classmates, including Serena's ex, as she tries to cope with the absence of a beloved older brother who is estranged from the family (whereabouts unknown) because of his unwillingness to undergo treatment for drug addiction. Enter down-to-earth nineteen-year-old Gage who feels like a breathe of fresh air among the fray, except that he's bothered by the age gap between himself and Serena. Something he doesn't even know the whole truth about.
Unlike the other two novels, Shantallow isn't contemporary YA but it does share some DNA with them in the form of an at first heady young relationship that later verges into abuse. The toxic relationship between Misha and Tanvi (the girl he has nightmares about before he ever sees her in real life) is enfolded into the horror tale of a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong when the remote, long abandoned house the kidnappers confine the young couple and two others in violently turns on all of them, determined to drag its warped past into the present.
Shantallow marks a shift from writing mostly contemporary fiction about young people to focusing on adult speculative novels, which is why I've chosen a different pen name for it and more recent books. Although Shantallowand Rise, Tomorrow Girlboth feature seventeen-year-old main characters I think of them as crossover novels rather than strictly being YA in nature. Subsequent horror and sci-fi novels written as Cara Martin will primarily focus on adult characters, but I'm not entirely ruling out the odd speculative crossover. On the other hand, if I ever write more contemporary YA (which I'm not eternally ruling out either) it will likely be under the name C. K. Kelly Martin.
So much hangs in the balance here in Canada and we have a whole weekend plus
most of Monday to get through. Hold your nerve, Canadians, and for those
who haven't voted yet, support whoever can beat the Cons in your
riding. Keep authoritarians out of power.
If you're not sure who stands the best chance to block the Conservative Party in your area, you can use votewell.ca.
At this point, Pierre Poilievre is well known for declaring a war on 'woke' and vowing to defund the CBC. The broadcaster has long been an integral component of our nation, reflecting Canada's evolving identity back to us. Thanks to Stephen Harper (who fundamentally changed the media landscape by allowing the foreign takeover of Postmedia) far too many of Canada's outlets are rightwing media hedge fund owned and that bias increasingly shows, making the CBC's survival, in both English and French, even more crucial.
During Poilievre's federal election campaign he's restricted media access, limiting access at campaign stops by only allowing handpicked reporters to pose questions. Unlike Canada's other major political parties, the Conservative Party of Canada refused to allow journalists to travel with Poilievre on his campaign bus and plane, "ending a decades-old tradition of reporters embedding with a prospective candidate to lead the country." Poilievre's demonizing of the press and his disturbing restricting of reporter access is far from new. His ongoing war on journalism demonstrates a marked lack of respect for a cornerstone of democracy. This should concern all Canadians.
There's a reason why Poilievre's Elon Musk's choice for Prime Minister and that Canadians are being bombarded with rightwing disinformation on X as well as Meta. Given the chance, Poilievre intends to make Canada over in the U.S.'s image from the inside. A slew of regressive changes delivered with a sneer. He's continually courted the far right, playing fast and loose with the truth while fermenting rage that he's hoped to ride to power. His own record and recent campaign promises starkly demonstrate his malicious intentions. Tax cuts at the expense of keeping our healthcare system and social safety net strong, scapegoating rather than nation building.
Poilievre was a leading defender of the “Fair Elections Act,” a voter suppression Bill that "impaired voting rights, reduced political participation, injected partisan bias in election administration, increased the influence of money in elections, diminished transparency and accountability, and seriously undermined the integrity and fairness of the electoral process." Here are some other highlights of his voting record as an MP.
Let's not forget that soon after securing his own government pension, Poilievre voted to raise the retirement age for others to 67. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when asked about the CERB benefits that kept many Canadian afloat, Poilievre admitted "We're Conservatives we don't believe in that."
If you'd like to read more about why Poilievre is perceived as an authoritarian threat that would destroy Canada as we know it if given free reign, here's some further reading material for you.
We've seen where voting for Populist politicians who vociferously feign being a friend of the common man while actually representing a select few elite and disenfranchising and impoverishing everyone else gets you. That's not democracy. That's not the kind of Canada most of us want.
If there's anything more Canadian than a Canadian band (Our Lady Peace) covering another Canadian band (The Tragically Hip) in an arena called the Canadian Tire Centre in the nation's capital it's starting a singalong of the national anthem, which happened last night too!
A clip from OLP's cover of Locked in the Trunk of a Car last night:
Anyone who has lived in this country awhile is these days no doubt experiencing much the same thing as I am, which is a unity and demonstrative pride in Canada unlike any I've ever seen outside of Canada Day, the Olympics or hockey games. Much as Canadians love this nation, we're not ordinarily showy about it. With few exceptions Canadians are traditionally not flag-wavers, and when we sing the national anthem aloud (which is not often) it's generally underneath our breath.
An antagonistic United States, making threats to our sovereignty and repeatedly disrespecting our Prime Minister, has unleashed something inside us that won't be put back in the bottle anytime soon. We're shopping Canadian, avoiding U.S. products and travel, and wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
I don't know how well you can make the sound out on the below video but OLP's Raine Maida had the CTC audience singing the national anthem late in their show in Ottawa last night. I've never seen anything like this at a rock concert before. The emotion in the arena was incredible.
Here are a couple of other clips from Our Lady Peace's amazing show in Ottawa last night. I always find myself thinking of Finn, from One Lonely Degree, during Clumsy in particular. She was fifteen when the book was released in 2009 which would make her around thirty-one now, but I know she'd still be hitting Our Lady Peace concerts.
Russian Mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya wrote these words in 1888, and the
message holds true across miles and years. Stay true. And in this casealso, elbows up, Canada. I know
Canadians will do what they can to support their neighbours and
countrymen during this difficult time. We will never again feel the same way about the United States, a once valued friend and ally, no matter what happens from here on out. We will, however, do what we must for our national sovereignty. Because Canada is not the United States. We value different things, and we will control our own destiny, no matter what that costs in dollars and cents.
Like The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie sang in Wheat Kings, "You can't be fond of living in the past, 'Cause if you are, then there's no way that you're gonna last." Together we will move forward from where we currently stand, mindful of what matters, and we will weather the storm.
This country isn't perfect, but it has never stopped striving to be better. Canada is beautiful, strong, and free. And it's ours.
With the same moderation changes that resulted in a torrent of hate speech and disinformation on X now set to roll out on Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) it was time to pull up stakes and spend time places that respect facts and people instead. As for what you can expect at Meta moving forward:
I've already left Facebook (and Twitter/X before that) and am currently in the process of packing up my Instagram account. Many of my favourite photographs from 2007 to the present have moved to Flickr. My final day on Instagram will be January 19th.
Here are some other places you can continue to find me:
