Maureen Foss's off-beat and darkly funny third novel begins when four quirky and mismatched women answer an ad to join a writing group. Unlikely friendships and wild adventures ensue as their lives start to unravel around them. Bunny, the wife of a calculating, cheating husband, is writing a novel about the best way to carry out spousal disposal and get away with it. Mariah, a closet lesbian, is planning to make a fortune by marketing her romance novels when her home is suddenly invaded by her mother and her mother's blaspheming parrot. The sentimental poet, Sari, makes her living as a funeral home cosmetician, but when her husband kidnaps their son and runs off for a new life without her, quiet, introverted Sari transforms into a wildcat. As the gardening, recipe and etiquette columnist for the local paper, Jemima blends her somewhat unorthodox recipes with her motherly advice. But she suffers a bad case of writer's block when her husband Joe, a wheelchair-user, has a stroke and falls face-first into her experimental lima bean casserole. The women's lives intertwine; good scotch is consumed, lovers come and go and almost everything around them changes, but writing is the glue that holds their friendships fast.

Born in New Westminster, Maureen Foss has lived in several western Canadian locales and made her living as a hospital activity worker. Now retired, she focuses her attention on writing. She is the author of the novels The Rat Trap Murders (Nightwood) and The Cadillac Kind (Polestar), as well as a number of award-winning short stories. Her latest book is Scribes (Caitlin). Foss lives with her husband Dave in Garden Bay on BC's Sunshine Coast.

Maureen Foss' profile page

Scribes

by Driftchild