Catherine Bush's riveting novel The Rules of Engagement explores the rules that govern both love and warfare. Arcadia Hearne fled Canada for Britain ten years ago after witnessing two students fight a duel over her in a Toronto ravine. A conflict specialist with London's Centre for Contemporary War Studies, the reclusive 31-year-old shields herself from any form of risk, romantic or geo-political. But when her globe-trotting sister, Lux, persuades her to deliver a package to a Somali exile in London, Arcadia is forced to confront the hidden violence of her past and to embrace the dangerous realities of her present.

Wendy Van Riesen captures the emotional tension and intellectual rigour of this tautly constructed literary thriller about love and apathy in the era of Rwanda.

Catherine Bush is the author of five novels. Her work has been critically acclaimed, published internationally, and shortlisted for numerous awards. Her most recent novel, Blaze Island, was a Globe and Mail and Writers’ Trust of Canada Best Book of the Year, and the Hamilton Reads 2021 Selection. Her other novels include the Canada Reads longlisted Accusation; the Trillium Award shortlisted Claire's Head; the national bestselling The Rules of Engagement, which was also named a New York Times Notable Book and a L.A. Times Best Book of the Year; and Minus Time, shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award. The recipient of numerous fellowships, Bush has been Writer-in-Residence/Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich and a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Delmenhorst, Germany. An Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, she lives in Toronto and in an old schoolhouse in Eastern Ontario.

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Wendy Van Riesen is a respected Canadian film and television actor.

Wendy Van Riesen's profile page